


Abstinence is Not in Tony Stark's Dic(k)tionary

by emeraldine087



Series: Tony Stark's Dictionary 'verse (aka "Abstinence 'verse") [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bottom Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Celibacy Challenge, Cockblocking, Cynicism, Drunken Confessions, Enforced Association, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, First Impressions, Frequent Intoxication, Gay For You, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Man-whore Tony Stark, Mentions of way too many party games, Mutual Pining, Neighbors, One Night Stands, Past Relationship(s), Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Protective Tony Stark, Relationship hang-ups, Romantic Comedy, Sex Addiction, Sloooooooooow Build, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Author's issues have issues, Tony Stark Has Issues, Top Steve Rogers, Top Tony Stark, delayed gratification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 20:14:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 105,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8636674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldine087/pseuds/emeraldine087
Summary: The Players - Steve Rogers is a conservative, introverted, socially awkward, dog-loving, stick-to-one romantic, who is a staunch believer in long-term relationships after having been a part of one for three years, and living next door to him is new tenant, Tony Stark, a philandering, fuck-anything-that-moves, confident, sarcastic, cat-loving, self-made Lothario whose relationships are about as lengthy and as meaningful as a fellatio (literally speaking).The Challenge - Steve will go on dates, getting tips and tidbits from Tony to be able to get back in the dating scene while Tony will abstain from any and all sexual activity (including masturbation) for thirty days.The Incentive - (mostly for Tony's benefit) A no-strings-attached one-night-stand between the socially awkward romantic and the philandering Lothario.Can Tony follow through on his challenge despite all of the naysayers? Can Steve change Tony's mind about love and relationships? What is in store for them around the thirty-day bend: self-discovery? Deep abiding friendship? Love, perhaps?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eruditemonk (agent_declan)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_declan/gifts).



> THIS IS IT!!!!!! I've poured blood, sweat and tears (of mirth) for this, my first time EVER to participate in the Annual Captain America-Iron Man Big Bang Challenge. I am so happy and proud that I was able to finish this story despite its being only 45% done when we had to submit the draft last September, and it's another monster of a story, clocking in at 21 chapters, 105k+ words.
> 
> I must say that this story presents a lot of firsts for me: this is my first time to participate in ANY fanfic-writing challenge; this is my first time to write a Stony AU-nonpowered fanfic; this is my first time to write explicit sex scenes (whether in the MCU or Potterverse fandoms); this is my first time to have art done based on my story; and this is the first time I've ever written with a definite, ball-busting deadline hanging over my head (I admit also that that part was both grueling and exhilarating). 
> 
> I hope y'all will enjoy the story as I think it's very relatable, and I would love to know what you think about it. So, please don't hesitate to hit those KUDOS and COMMENT buttons to let me know your sentiments. Also, if you spot any issues (typos, grammatical errors, inconsistencies, etc.), do give me a heads-up so they can be corrected.
> 
> I would also like to thank the amazingly talented, gifted, awesome, absolutely FABULOUS [meereswiederkaeuer](http://meereswiederkaeuer.tumblr.com/) for the art which are embedded in various parts of the story. Check out her art blog for more of her fantastic work. Again, huge thanks, meere, for the chance to collaborate with you. It was my great privilege.
> 
> This fanfic is also dedicated to my high school friend and sister from another mother, eruditemonk (agent declan), on the event of your birthday on the 26 November, and for your invaluable help cheer-reading me for this fanfic. You didn't know it but when we discussed in Facebook, it was this fic we were discussing. Thanks, thanks and Happy, happy birthday!  
> \-----

Brunette and brown-eyed Tony Stark had his apartment doors thrown wide open, accepting the fourth delivery in three days of his furniture and some compact scientific equipment, when his still unnamed blonde, blue-eyed and built-like-a-GQ-model neighbor from across the hall strode up the stairs, curious but uncertain about his new floor mate.

“Hi—I, uh—so…you’re the new tenant,” said Mr. GQ, hesitantly keeping to the threshold, but his dancing blue eyes, looking at the hodgepodge of stuff by Tony’s unit’s doorway that the brunette was yet to put in order, betrayed his interest.

“That’s me. Tony Stark,” he introduced himself with what he would like to think was his signature lopsided grin, offering his left hand at the same time for the other man to take while his right remained behind the door and loosely wrapped around the knob. Not that he was paranoid as hell and intended to slam the door in his new neighbor’s face if the latter showed any signs of weirdness, but Tony didn’t know the guy, and one couldn’t be too sure about the security around the area even if he had staked the area out multiple times and it had checked out and withstood all scrutiny. And even if Mr. Neighbor From Across the Hall _was_ kinda cute.

“Steve. Steve Rogers—welcome to the building,” the blonde said with a thin-lipped smile while he shook Tony’s proffered hand. “Need any help hauling stuff up? With the broken elevator, it can be an inconvenience to lug furniture up four flights of stairs.” He gestured, absent-mindedly, towards the stairway at the rear of the building that snaked around the only (nonfunctional) elevator.

“Thanks for the offer, but the movers have got everything under control. I think this might actually be the last of my stuff so… It’s fine,” replied Tony with a shrug and another lopsided grin. He was finding it difficult to quit grinning around the man, and it was throwing him for a loop. Who knew that tall, blue-eyed blondes with the physique of a linebacker was _one_ of his types? This was something to tell his unofficial PA and close friend, Pepper Potts, who always had the most creative and straightforward of opinions on the matter of Tony’s notoriously philandering ways.

Tony was distracted from ogling his new neighbor when his Bombay cat, Friday, sidled up to his denim-clad legs as if inquiring who the stranger was and if she could be introduced to him as well.

“Oh—you have a…cat,” Steve said, gesturing towards Tony’s pet.

“Yup, her name’s Friday. She’s house trained so you’ve no need to worry about her mucking about the hallway. I love cats; they’re so low-maintenance. This one is sometimes perfectly content ignoring me all day,” said Tony, bending over to rub behind Friday’s ears.

There was a bit of tension as the newly-acquainted neighbors lingered by Tony’s doorway wordlessly. Well, at least the cat was worth a two-minute conversation.

To Tony, Steve looked like he was internally debating with himself to say something else while Tony, himself, just drew a blank about how to cut their meet-cute short.

“Listen, I’m having some friends over tonight for some beers, pizza and video games. If you’re not too…busy— _and_ if you’re into that…sort of thing, maybe you can hang out with us?” Steve asked, hesitation tingeing his voice. Tony’s eyebrows quirked a bit in intrigue. He found himself holding his breath, waiting for Steve to choke up or his voice to break, but it didn’t happen.

Tony gave his neighbor a dazzling smile in contrast to the tight-lipped ones he’d given so far, and Steve actually blinked, startled, at Tony’s response, like he had never been the object of flirting before. Well, Steve had never been the object of _Tony_ ’s flirting before, so the reaction was completely understandable. “Sure, I’d love to, Steve!” Tony was such a man-whore; he could almost imagine Pepper profusely apologizing to Steve in Tony’s behalf. For all Tony knew, Steve wasn’t even into men, and he was just either too nice to punch Tony’s lights out or too startled at Tony’s shameless flirting to really know what the hell was happening.

“So—yeah, OK. I—uh—see you later then,” Steve said with a vague wave of his hand before turning on the balls of his feet and walking towards his own apartment door, and, in record time, got his key out, his door open and his person inside with nary a backward glance like he was narrowly escaping from something.

“Hmm,” Tony muttered to himself, biting the corner of his lower lip. “Interesting…”

 

-0-0-0-

Tony brought takeaway spicy buffalo wings when he met Steve’s friends, James ‘Bucky’ Barnes and Sam Wilson.

Though his apartment was still in complete disarray since he’d moved in three days ago and he was not very fond of playing video games, Tony still decided to take Steve up on his invitation to join him and his friends.

The first thing that Tony noticed upon entering Steve’s unit was the beagle looking up at him with curious chocolate eyes. “So, you’re a dog person,” said Tony, making his way further into the apartment while giving the dog a wide berth. Tony wasn’t. He had always been a cat person because cats could pretty much look after themselves, even giving themselves baths and everything. Tony always thought that dogs were too much work.

“I’ve always had pet dogs, so I guess you can say that,” answered Steve, though that wasn’t really a question on Tony’s part. “His name’s Captain. You don’t have to worry about him; he’s very behaved. I hope this won’t be a problem for your cat that there’s a dog next door?”

“No worries. Nothing fazes Friday.” Which happened to be true as well. He always brought all sorts of people home with him and all Friday had ever done was to give them a contemptuous and somewhat reproachful look before she went about her own way around the apartment, unmindful of them for the rest of the night. A curious but behaved dog was not going to be a problem.

Tony ended up feeling quite glad that he was given the chance to meet Steve’s buddies because, for one, Bucky and Sam were a hoot and, for another, it gave him better appreciation for the specimen that was his new neighbor.

Apparently, Steve and Bucky were childhood best friends who had grown up in houses right next door to each other in Brooklyn. After Steve’s mother’s death due to lung cancer, they enlisted in the army together where they served for two tours of duty. Their army stint came to an end because of an accident that badly mangled Bucky’s left arm and got Steve shot in four different parts of his body. They were both extremely lucky to be alive. Sure—Bucky always tripped airport security scanners ever since because of all the metal that his arm was now chock full of, and Steve’s learned to live with a more delicate immune system that required vast quantities of extra potent antibiotics for something as simple as the sniffles because he’d lost his spleen and a kidney. But both were unapologetically grateful to be alive.

Steve and Sam, on the other hand, had met at Steve’s first job after having recovered from his deployment accident. They worked as ‘partners’ of a sort for a security and private investigation agency named SHIELD Corp. with Steve as an office-based researcher/investigator doing the phone inquiries, internet research or ‘hacks within legal or extralegal parameters’ (as their boss used to call it) and clerical stuff like drafting lucid reports for their clients and company records, and Sam as the covert operative doing the grunt and leg work.

Incidentally, Sam and Bucky became fast friends themselves, having met in the same gym before they even found out that they had Steve as a common friend.

And the rest was history, which Tony had to admit was very interesting as far as new acquaintances went. Especially considering that most of his encounters with acquaintances involved more fucking than talking about themselves. It was refreshing.  

“So Tony, are you in a relationship, by any chance?” Sam casually asked, bringing a bottle of beer to his lips for a deep swig.

It was Bucky’s and Steve’s turn in the video game console for some much needed stress-release through the simulated violence that was _Call of Duty_. The Xbox 360 was new; Steve had saved a certain portion of the proceeds from his freelance investigative work for half a year to buy the thing to retire his ancient game console that was his and his friends’ only means of relaxation.

Toying with his half-full beer bottle propped against the arm of the couch where he was seated, Tony answered with a slight purse of his lips, “nope. I’m not a big believer of exclusive and enduring relationships.”

“Once burned, huh?” Bucky teased, offhandedly; his attention was on the game probably more than what any reaction Tony would deign to give. “What’d _she_ do to you, pal?”

“ _What?!_ You think I’m one of them lovelorn idiots who’ve sworn off love for good only because I’ve been hurt by a straying or non-appreciative partner?” Tony said, protest writ all over his smirk. But he was not offended that Bucky would think that; after all, they’d only just met and Tony did have that geeky aura about him being an accomplished engineer/computer programmer with two PhDs under his belt by the time he was twenty-eight. He shrugged, thumbing the moisture on the outside of his perspiring bottle of beer and considering how to set things right with his new friends. “No—sorry to have to disabuse you of the notion but nothing of the sort has ever happened to me. Avoidance of long-term relationships is actually a conscious choice on my part and not merely a reaction to someone else’s rejection of me. That would be _pathetic_.” Tony’d actually _never_ been in a relationship that lasted more than two nights before. Back-to-back lay was his hard limit. But he didn’t think he was sufficiently intimate with these guys already for them to know that. Tony may be a man-whore, true, but he didn’t have to be vulgar about it.

Sam sputtered on the mouthful of beer he’d just drank, and Bucky actually chortled. “Ouch! Someone took a hit with that; come on, bud, shake it off, shake it off,” Sam jokingly consoled, reaching out and giving Steve’s shoulder a hard squeeze. “Tony was only blunt about it because he doesn’t know what you’ve been going through—“

“—for _two_ years now! She’s moved on, Stevie, and you sure as hell ought to. You shouldn’t be spending Saturday nights holed up in your apartment, gorging on pizza and playing video games. You should be getting back out there,” Bucky encouraged, battering the buttons on the wireless controller and concentrating on the gory gunfight on the screen with every intention to beat Steve.

“Then maybe we can also get to spend Saturday evenings with our respective girlfriends, for a change,” Sam interjected, plucking a buffalo wing from the carton on the coffee table with an over-the-top eye roll.

“Like hell, you’d actually spend Saturday nights with Nat and Leila,” Steve said with a snort. “And what—while I waste my time on these dates, _trying to get back out there_ , you guys would be sneaking in _my apartment_ and playing _on my Xbox_ over beers and pizza? Thank you but I’d rather hack off my left nut with a rusty machete than take your advice.” Steve was also intent on pummeling the controller’s buttons with a single-minded focus to get a win over Bucky.

“Don’t you think two years is a long time to get over someone?” Tony interjected above the din of Sam and Bucky’s ‘oh come on, we wouldn’t’ protestations and Steve’s ‘you would, too!’ accusations.

“I told you, man!” Sam, raising his eyebrows, clapped Steve in the back. Like he counted it as a win that he wasn’t the only one who thought so, too. Then, turning to Tony, said, “thank you.”

“Well… She _was_ special,” Steve said unabashedly. Like what he’d just said wasn’t corny at all. Tony groaned internally—just his luck to have a hopeless romantic within a ten-meter radius of his place that he was on the verge of turning into a hovel of sin.

He was suddenly reminded of how the septuagenarian couple who were his neighbors in his old place had lodged a complaint with their building super about loud, keening noises that they could hear from his apartment, and he whistled under his breath. He wondered how long Steve could last before he, too, was demanding for Tony to keep the lovemaking noises down to sane levels.

“She’s special all right; I mean, how else would you describe a woman who’d _cheated_ on you by screwing around _with her boss_ for a good _three months_ before she had the gall to break it off with you and still asked you if you could still be _friends_ after everything she’d done in complete disregard of your three-year-long exclusive relationship—but _special_?” Sam practically spat if he weren’t otherwise inhaling a buffalo wing. “She’s a _specially_ fucking insane bitch is what she is.”

“And don’t you dare try to defend her or justify what she’d done, Stevie—it ain’t right!” Bucky warned. A tank exploded on the screen and it appeared that Bucky had won that leg of the game, but the brunette still kept fiddling with the buttons in case Steve was still looking to put up a fight.

While Bucky and Steve were doing a post-mortem of the game in between arguing about the blonde’s non-existent dating habits, Tony sidled up to Sam and asked below his breath, “so does this specially fucking insane bitch got a name or what?”

“Sharon—Sharon Carter. Steve’s still unfortunately hung up on her because before Sharon broke things off with him, Steve was already thinking of asking her to marry him. He really took the break-up very hard,” Sam brought Tony up to speed. “The thing you have to understand about Steve is he’s an old-fashioned guy. He believes in courting a girl he likes; he believes in getting to know a woman before he falls in bed with her; he believes in a long engagement, meeting the parents, probably even doing manual labor for his fiancée. He’d probably marry a girl he accidentally knocks up without thinking twice about it. He’s that type of guy—honorable and old-fashioned. He doesn’t sleep around—doesn’t like to flaunt his good looks and physique even though girls’d most likely take him to bed based on those alone and he doesn’t even have to open his mouth,” Sam told Tony under his breath so the subject of their conversation would relatively be a secret from the rest of the occupants of the room.

Tony nodded, intrigued anew with all the new information about these new people who were now in his orbit. He didn’t know why but there was something about these guys that made him want to be friends with them. Tony didn’t have many friends. In fact, there were only four people he trusted in his life: Pepper, Rhodey—his roommate from college, who had later on enlisted in the air force after their graduation from MIT, Bruce, who was his science soulmate and SI colleague, and Happy who was once Tony’s chauffeur and muscle and became his friend and confidante also because of all of Tony’s secrets he’d come to be privy to.

And now, Tony wanted to get to know and befriend Bucky, Sam and especially Steve. His hot, gorgeous, _precious_ neighbor, Steve—who had had his poor heart broken by an unfeeling slut. Tony knew dating and sleeping around, and Steve, though he didn’t know it yet, was obviously crying for help to recover from his failed relationship and get back on the horse again. Tony was going to take it upon himself to be Obi-wan Kenobi to Steve’s Luke Skywalker.

And hey, maybe, if Tony could get to sleep with Steve himself in the process of getting the latter back on his dating feet, then his time would have been well spent and that wouldn’t be too shabby at all.

-0-0-0-

For someone who was supposed to be conservative and introverted, Steve—Tony’s come to notice in the one month since he’d moved in—was always in various states of nakedness.

A lot.

Like a _fucking_ lot.

There was that one time, three days after they’d hung out with Steve’s friends, that Tony needed a socket wrench in a bigger size than any he had available in his home tool box, so clad in his favorite work tank top and lounge pants, Tony crossed the hall and gave Steve’s apartment a knock in hopes that he could borrow the hand tool he needed. After three minutes of intermittent knocking, Tony almost gave up, thinking that Steve was probably out, asleep, or in the shower. But just as Tony was about to turn away, Steve did answer, opening his door in nothing but a small towel wrapped low around his hips and glistening in droplets of water. Tony’s eyeballs almost popped out of his head in gleeful surprise, and two more minutes and a lot of semi-composed babbling later, Tony finally communicated what he wanted to borrow out of his lips. It took almost all of Tony’s composure to restrain himself from reaching out and palming Steve’s retreating ass in that teeny, tiny towel as the latter turned around to get his wrench. Tony couldn’t, for the life of him, remember if he’d thanked Steve for the wrench as he practically scurried back to his own apartment in fear that Steve would notice Tony’s sudden boner.

There was also that time when they both opened their doors at about the same time for Tony to get his magazine subscriptions and Steve to get his newspaper that the building admin always left on the hallway, and Steve was shirtless and dressed only in blue tight-fitting training shorts that left absolutely _nothing_ to the imagination and rubber shoes. He muttered, unnecessarily, that he was cycling inside his room even though Tony didn’t ask for an explanation for his interesting sartorial choices for the day; Tony was too busy searing the memory of that groin and ass in those shorts in his brain to bother with any inquiries.

There was that other time, too, when Pepper came over and Tony wanted to introduce her to Steve. The latter answered the door, shirtless and dressed in low-clinging Levi’s stonewashed jeans like a Veritable God of Denim, explaining that a pipe in his kitchen had blown and soaked his shirt. Pepper had that dirty and knowing look behind her angelic smile while she shook Steve’s hand. Tony was just too busy staring at everything else but at the unbelievable pectorals on that man. The brunette couldn’t herd Pepper back to his side of the hallway and into his apartment fast enough. And Pepper could barely shut up about Steve and Tony’s interest in his neighbor for the entire goddamned day.

There were other times, too: Steve’s shirt tore just as he was answering the door; Steve just woke up and apparently he always slept in nothing but boxer-briefs; Steve and Tony were in the laundry room together and Steve just took his shirt off and threw it in the machine of his washables; Steve liked cleaning his apartment half-naked because he didn’t want to just sweat through a perfectly clean shirt; Steve was just giving a particularly playful Captain a bath in the tub and he got drenched…

The guy was half-naked just as many times as Tony was, and Tony had a perfectly good excuse for being almost naked almost all the damn time: he was screwing his way through the state of New York, for fuck’s sake! What was Rogers’ excuse—bathing the goddamned _dog_?!

This burgeoning situation with his neighbor was making Tony sexually frustrated if it was possible to be sexually frustrated even while he got to screw different people almost every damn night. Steve was a goddamned specimen—that Sharon girl was completely conked out for letting go of a really good thing she had going with Steve. If Tony got to screw or got screwed by _that_ every night, he would be absolutely blissed out, the whole building would _know_ what exactly it was they got up to every time.     

This was utterly unacceptable. Tony was not the type to be hung up on any one person. Not on someone he’s slept with, and especially not on someone he hasn’t slept with. Only believers in love and romance did that. And Tony was a lot of things but a romantic was not one of them. He believed in attraction and sex and satisfying base urges but not pining. Tony Stark didn’t do pining.

It was high time to get Steve out of his goddamned apartment and back in the thick of society. Maybe if the blonde wasn’t home all the bloody time, Tony wouldn’t be so obsessed with him. Maybe if Tony knew that Steve was somebody else’s, then the brunette wouldn’t be as interested in Steve as he was now that the latter was unattached and extremely vulnerable even to sexual predators like Tony.

Nothing to it—Steve was just giving off this pheromone of being unattached and undebauched for a long time, which was why Tony was probably so fascinated with him. Once Steve was off the market, Tony’s interest would wane.

Or even if Tony were still interested, by any chance, trying to get into Steve’s pants at this time was not the way to go. For one, Steve was still ridiculously out of practice. Tony thought that Steve ought to get his confidence back first; it had, after all, taken a severe beating with what had happened in his last relationship. For another, Tony didn’t want to have to take advantage of an insecure, uncertain and still-heartbroken Steve by screwing him using Tony’s usual modus of get in-get off-get out because Tony was an asshole, but even he wasn’t that much of an asshole. Not to his _friends_ —the circle of which, Steve, in the course of their neighborly relations, has joined.

And finally, the most persuasive reason was: an assertive, self-assured Steve was probably a dynamo in bed.

So—yeah—Tony could wait, bide his time, and while he was doing that, expend his mounting sexual frustration by screwing anything that moves that dared give him an appraising eye.

He vowed to make Steve pay for all his unintended allure soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The challenge has been issued. Will Tony bite?

Unbeknownst to Tony Stark, Steve was already paying quite a steep price for a debt he didn’t know he owed his neighbor from across the hall. And the currency of the payment? Inhuman amounts of sexual frustration and sleepless nights.

If it was just the damn cat, keening and howling in the dead of night, Steve would’ve been able to handle it and let it slide off his back. But it wasn’t. There was no mistaking the positively lascivious sounds emanating from his neighbor’s apartment night after night but the sounds of vigorous sexual activity. 

Steve didn’t think anyone could blame him, really. He was a man who had made love to just one woman for three years. Who was yet to have sex again for the past twenty-four months since said woman had broken up with him. Who now had to live right across the hall from a man so sexually active, he’d give a Bonobo chimpanzee a run for its money. Who had to suffer through night after night of having to hear such uninhibited and, at times, downright _freaky_ sexual activity through the criminally thin walls of their apartment building, and day after day of having to see the same neighbor in varied levels of shameless nudity make quick work of dispatching his bed partners.

It wasn’t so much that Steve was bothered by Tony’s _activities_ , what really got him all that disconcerted was the fact that Tony was so… Tony was so…so… _sexy_ in the least feminine way that wasn’t supposed to appeal to Steve at all. _At all_. But now, it oddly did. Steve wanted to chalk it up to severe self-deprivation of carnal interaction that he was finding men sexually appealing now, too. That made for one hell of an awkward Saturday night with Bucky and Sam when Steve did some massive introspection whether he was starting to find his best buddies sexy over several noisy rounds of _Assassin’s Creed IV_.

Quite fortunately, no such realization was arrived at. Though both Sam and Bucky were lookers in their own right as Steve could admit because he had eyes and he was into art and aesthetics, the two were still the same Sam and Bucky to him. He didn’t find them attractive in a push-them-against-the-wall-and-rut-against-them type of attractive. He was so relieved that his friends were only just that—his friends—that his shoulders visibly relaxed, and he started to enjoy his friends’ company again.

Steve concluded that it was just Tony then; there was _something_ about Tony that made Steve question how contented he really was about his (supposedly) heterosexual orientation. While it was true that he had experimented with and explored his sexuality with the help of his contemporaries as he was coming of age (and Bucky knew about them, too), he’d thought he had outgrown that stage especially after he’d settled on a long-term and exclusive relationship with Sharon.

Apparently not.

Thirty-three days. For _thirty-three days_ now, Steve was privy to what went on in Tony’s apartment on the other side of the hallway. He could hear every keen, moan, pant, growl, whimper, hiss, occasional scream, creak of the bed joints, thud of the bed’s head board against the wall. Once or twice, if he really strained his hearing and tried to keep the thundering of his heart out of his ears, he could almost make out Tony’s own climax.

And Steve’s skin would break out in gooseflesh, his toes would curl and his hand would tighten in a fistful of his bedsheets. And he would let out a heavy breath he didn’t know he was holding.

For thirty-three fucking days, he always took a freezing cold shower on full blast at three in the morning. And he had Tony _fucking_ Stark to blame for it.

He was always so sleepy and wound up tighter than the girdle of a Baptist minister's wife at an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at work that he had developed a semi-permanent murderous expression on his face even worse than when Sharon’s cheating had come to the fore. He was usually so jovial and approachable at work, but lately, everyone’s been giving him a wide berth because of his crankiness. With his dark mood, he had taken to stalking Tony Stark using his usual internet channels—ones he always used for clients in SHIELD Corp.’s private investigation arm for which he and Sam worked.

Tony Stark or Anthony Edward Stark was a thirty-five-year-old genius who got his second doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from MIT at the age of twenty-eight. His first doctorate was on Electronic Communications Engineering from the same university at the age of twenty-three. He used to work for his father’s tech conglomerate _Stark Enterprises_ , which was a household name for advanced tech in the 20th century, as head of Research and Development until he had a falling out with his father because of Tony’s philandering ways that always had a negative impact on the company and the older Stark’s increasing paranoia due to (rumored) alcoholism. After Tony’s parents’ death in a car accident, the younger Stark inherited what’s left of the empire that his father had nearly run into the ground because of his (rumored) vices and mental illness towards the end of his life.

But instead of reinvigorating the dying conglomerate then mired with controversies about internal conflicts between the younger Stark and some of the board members who were closely identified with his father, Tony sold the company and with the proceeds decided to found a start-up tech company _Stark Industries_ from scratch that focused on inventing new tech components and miniaturizing machines which would be subsequently patented for thousands and sometimes millions of dollars. Tony Stark raked in quite some dough and stayed relatively anonymous while doing it that enabled him to live the carefree life he had now—inventing tech in the morning whilst dressed in various iterations of that ridiculously sexy tank top and low-riding lounge pants (if Steve was lucky) or in just tiny black silk boxers (if Steve wasn’t), and screwing his way through the five boroughs of the state of New York at night all in the absolute comfort of his 5th floor apartment (and only occasionally coming into his midtown office for work) while driving his neighbor crazy.

Steve didn’t stop his ‘research’ there. He was just so criminally curious about his new neighbor that he even researched on the more popular people that, based on widespread rumors, caught his eye and (probably) shared his bed in the past. There were models, socialites, heirs and heiresses, a racecar driver, one or two club DJs, a couple of Olympians, several professional tennis players, several TV actors and actresses, a Grammy nominee—the list went on, and that didn’t even count the nameless ones that he just probably bumped into as he was leaving the john in some dance club or wine-tasting gig. Men _and_ women ranging from the ages of barely legal to mid-fifties. It wasn’t that Tony wasn’t picky with whomever it was he slept with because he was—he must be. He seemed to have a type, at least to Steve that was what it looked like:

They were all such good-looking people; people that people craned their necks for and stood on their toes to catch a glimpse of; people who seemed interesting and engaging. Tony’s type wasn’t the kind of person who would pine for someone for two years, spend their free time reading mystery and crime novels and their Saturday nights stuffing their faces with pizza while playing _Grand Theft Auto_ and _Call of Duty_ , clean their apartment in nothing but their tatty basketball shorts, and work a desk job in a security agency using up their lunch hour trolling their neighbor’s sexual conquests on _Google_.

Steve couldn’t believe that he had been reduced to this—comparing his own self-worth to those of Tony’s conquests! He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t attracted to Tony (he was straight, for crying out loud; he’s been screwing girls since he could remember. Well—except that one…or two—fine— _four_ …times that he got really frisky with a guy, which was eons and eons ago, anyway!); he was just _curious_ , and he was _still_ a hot-blooded thirty-two-year-old who was developing carpal tunnel masturbating all the time because that was as close as he was going to get to getting laid and relieving all this pent-up stress over having a sex machine for a next door neighbor.

Steve had awesome control over his sex urges and everything, but he was hardly a fucking _monk_! Tony was testing his resolve, and Steve didn’t know when and how he would cave. And that terrified him because, no, he didn’t want to have sex with his neighbor. He didn’t. He was after a loving and long-term relationship…

“I’m after a love-filled and long-term relationship,” Steve murmured to himself under the strongest blast of ice-cold water in his shower at (right on bloody time) three in the morning, for the thirty-fourth day in a row. At least it was a Saturday and he didn’t have to go to work and glower at his colleagues due to the thriving sex life he _wasn’t_ having. “I don’t just want sex. I want something _more_ than just sex. And I certainly don’t want sex with my neighbor who’s just going to make me the 394th notch on his bed post— _no_. I don’t want sex with Tony; I _don’t_ want sex with Tony,” Steve repeated like a mantra to the tune of the water sluicing down his drain in the running shower.

Maybe if he repeated that for thirty-four more days like this, he could begin to believe—what—12% of it?

He felt like the most sexually repressed person on the face of the globe that he was afraid that if Tony showed even just a smidgen of interest in wanting to have sex with him, Steve was going to cave in the most humiliating way possible and beg Tony to bend him over his kitchen counter and fuck him senseless. Until he couldn’t remember Sharon’s name anymore. Or what Sharon did to him—to _them_.

But Steve steeled his resolve as he prepared to face another day. He was above these base urges. Relationships were more than just sticking his dick somewhere and getting his rocks off. Relationships meant a commitment that was more than just sex. He wasn’t going to play the field and pull a Tony Stark just to find the right one.

Steve had just gotten dressed in a thin white shirt and his oldest, comfiest denim jeans when frantic-sounding knocks issued from his door. He pulled it open for just a peep when who else should come barging it but Steve’s sexual deviant of a neighbor himself, Tony Stark?

Tony was (as has become usual at around this time on a Saturday morning) topless and barely clinging to tiny black silk boxers hanging low on his hips. “Asylum,” he said, nearly breathlessly. “My date last night’s like a fucking _octopus_.” He shut the door and planted his face by the peephole to surreptitiously observe his own apartment on the other side.

“Good morning to you, too, neighbor,” Steve mock greeted, rolling his eyes even though he knew Tony couldn’t see it. “Come in and take a load off,” he continued sarcastically, averting his eyes from the lick-worthy muscles rippling on Tony’s back as the latter was still pressed against the door to watch for his abandoned date through the peephole.

“Thanks for letting me crash for a mo,” Tony muttered, not bothering to turn towards Steve. “I’m telling you, Steve. This guy’s damn clingy than most girls I’ve slept with, and he _snores_!” That was the only time he turned towards Steve as if to elicit his sympathy and spat out the last word like it was an offense that merited the capital punishment.

“Everyone snores, Tony—“

“ _I_ don’t snore,” Tony interrupted petulantly, turning back to the peephole. “He gives fantastic head though.”

“That’s…a piece of really crucial information I could have gone my whole life not knowing,” Steve retorted, wanting to go for more sarcasm, but in reality, he was struggling with the ferocious blush he could feel was starting to bloom on his face and neck. He really didn’t want to feed his imagination with the mental images that Tony was freely offering that morning. Six o’clock was too damn early for this shit!

“Who died last night and bequeathed you with a bag full of _sass_ this morning?”

“Your boy toy’s remaining brain cells, for sure,” Steve answered with a mirthless titter. “If he had _any_ to begin with.”

“Hey, let me tell you that it takes considerable _aptitude_ to give as fantastic a head as he gave me last night—or was that early this morning…?” Tony trailed off before cutting to: “shush, he’s opened the door… He’s looking around…”

“Probably looking for his _brains_ that deserted him last night… Jesus—is this gonna be, like, a Saturday morning norm for you? To hide out in your neighbor’s apartment so you can avoid an uber awkward morning-after cuddle with your Friday Night Fuck?” Steve asked in a hushed voice.

“Only when they’re clingy and handsy and because you happen to be nice,” Tony answered in a murmur as well, more mindful of what was going down on the hall outside than in Steve’s apartment.

Steve begged to disagree—he wasn’t nice. If Tony asked Sharon, he would know how much of a vindictive asshole Steve could be—especially for someone who hadn’t been getting enough sleep. Steve had been steadily burning through his nice since Tony had moved in. He was about _this_ goddamned close to exhibiting how not-nice he was. 

“If he knocks on my door looking for you and makes a scene, I’m kicking you out right into his open arms,” Steve threatened, walking towards his kitchenette and turning his coffeemaker on. He needed about three gallons of piping hot coffee for this shit.

“He’s not going to knock; they never knock. They wouldn’t want a witness to their Walk of Shame, which is what this is,” Tony supplied from his perch, pressed up against Steve’s door. “Can I have some coffee?”

“Get it your own damn self,” answered Steve, loudly slurping his own cup to infuriate Tony as much as he, himself, was infuriated. He went back to where he’d stood like a sentinel in the middle of his apartment, looking at Tony who was still avidly watching through the peephole. “I don’t understand how you can’t identify the headcases from the normal ones. Aren’t you supposed to be an engineer or…or inventor of some sort? There’s such a thing as _taste_ ; you ought to try it sometime,” Steve admonished, rolling his eyes from the rim of his coffee mug.

“Contrary to what you might think, I don’t sleep with just about any warm and willing body that happen to catch my eye. I do have standards, which are quite impeccable; thank you very much,” Tony said in a huff.

“And here I thought you’d sleep with anything you happen to be pressed up against,” the blonde bantered back. “Which right now happens to be my door. Should I be worried for my door?”

“Haha, Steven, haha,” Tony sassed, finally moving away from the door to sit his ass down on Steve’s couch regally—or at least as regally as possible for someone clad in nothing else but black silk boxers. “So, have you got anything planned for tonight—it being _Saturday_ and all or are Sam and Bucky coming over for video games again?”

“Yeah, they’re coming over. You know we always play video games on Saturday nights unless Sam’s on a stakeout then I play by myself,” Steve answered, plopping down on his favorite armchair, tucking one leg under another and inhaling some more coffee.

“Maybe I’ll pop in on you boys for a bit later—say hi—before I go to this restaurant launch thing I got invited to.” Tony stood up and helped himself to some of Steve’s coffee before returning to his roost on the couch and teased, “unless I can persuade you, guys, to ease up on the Xbox tonight and go to the event with me. I’m sure I can wrangle a few more tickets… You think Bucky and Sam’s girlfriends would enjoy a resto launch?”

“Oh—you haven’t met them yet, right?” Steve realized. He, himself, had not hung out all that much with his buddies’ girlfriends. He had it in his head that the girls probably hated him for stealing their men away every Saturday night because he was a miserable, video game-playing loner who couldn’t get past having been cheated on by his girl. “Don’t give them any ideas,” added Steve.

“Scared that they’d like me better than they like you?”

“I’m already pretty sure they’d like you better than they like me. _You_ don’t hold their boyfriends hostage every Saturday night, and that, in itself, already works in your favor,” shrugged Steve.

“So _don’t_. Don’t hold their boyfriends hostage every Saturday night. There’s an entire _world_ out there that’s filled with interesting things and people who don’t cheat on their boyfriends with their bosses, Steve, _join it_ ,” Tony urged, clasping his hands together on his muscled abs with its suggestive trail of dark hair (that Steve was decidedly trying not to openly ogle at).

“Thanks but no thanks. I’m not in the mood. I haven’t been in the mood for the past two years.”

“Well—at least do something more interesting than kill your brain cells playing video games and stuffing your faces with beer and pizza,” scoffed Tony before gulping down the rest of his scalding coffee and standing up to return to his now blessedly empty apartment. “As much as your Saturday morning company thrills me, Steve, I’m gonna be out of your hair and go back to my House of Sin. I’ll try to swing by later to pay my respects to Bucky and Sam, and you know—maybe stay and hang out if we end up doing something more stimulating than getting our rocks off shooting holes through avatars in _Call of Duty_.”

-0-0-0-

“This is your idea of doing something more stimulating than playing video games?!” Steve clarified, blinking owlishly at Tony before narrowing his eyes at the _UNO Stacko_ box now sitting atop his center table.

“Hey I found this at the back of _your_ shelf of toys, and yeah—I think this is loads more interesting than that super violent game you’re playing,” answered Tony, resolute and refusing to be intimidated by Steve.

“That’s actually mine. I used to play that a lot as part of my therapy for the fine motor skills of my injured arm. I gave it to Stevie to keep because I needed to clear shelf space for when Nat and I moved in together,” Bucky explained, plucking the box off the table to study it. “God, I haven’t played this in so long, so—I’m in. Let’s go; let’s play.”

Bucky and Tony turned to Sam with expectant eyes. If Sam decided to play, Steve would have no choice but to go along with them. “What the hell—count me in,” Sam conceded, abandoning his Xbox controller and holding his hand out for the _UNO Stacko_ box of blocks.

Steve fought the urge to pout. It wasn’t that he was mad at Tony for hijacking their relatively uneventful and normal Saturday night; he was just immensely uncomfortable around Tony because he felt like it was clearly writ across his face that he was contending with thirty-four days’ worth of sexual frustration courtesy of the brunette. Steve had not expected Tony to stay after popping in and saying Hello to Bucky and Sam, but his friends were really comfortable around Tony so before Steve knew it, Tony had made the necessary calls to get himself out of having to attend the restaurant launch he was supposed to go to and chatted up a storm with Sam and Bucky.

He had already told Bucky and Sam of Tony’s unusual habits, of course, and his friends did him the discourtesy of actually _admiring_ Tony and his hedonistic lifestyle. That endeared Tony even more to Sam and Bucky, if that was even possible; it was maddening!

Steve _absolutely did not_ tell his friends how Tony’s proximity was making his sexual orientation go haywire. He let them think that he was only critical of Tony because, one, he was old-fashioned and set in his gentlemanly ways, and two, because       Steve was envious of all the action that Tony was getting, especially since they all believed him to be somewhat of an eccentric and reclusive geek and _not_ the prolific Casanova that he’d turned out to be.

Tony obviously didn’t enjoy playing video games all that much, so he took to exploring the nooks and crannies of Steve’s apartment while the latter glowered at the screen and _destroyed_ his opponents and pointedly ignored Tony’s disconcerting presence in his home until the brunette stumbled upon the apartment owner’s shelf of old board games and various knickknacks.

“Wanna make it more interesting?” Tony invited with a raise of his perfectly arched left eyebrow.

“What d’you have in mind?” Sam asked, intrigued.

“Whoever topples the tower of blocks will have to do a…challenge—a _dare_ of sorts,” Tony suggested, meaningfully looking at each of the other men around the center table.

Sam shrugged; Bucky pursed his lips but there was a twinkle of mischief in his gray-blue eyes; and Steve’s brows furrowed but he didn’t voice an objection. “What the hell—let’s do it,” acceded Sam, pouring the blocks out of the box and, with Bucky’s help, started piling the different colored blocks on the center table that had been relatively cleared of takeaway boxes and beer bottles.

Steve had almost forgotten how Bucky had gotten quite good at this game. His were the surest hands. Tony was also steady-handed as Steve grudgingly observed. Four turns in and he was starting to hate this game already.

Thankfully, it was Sam who toppled the _UNO Stacko_ first. He screamed sabotage with vast petulance but Bucky and Tony shot him down. “Your challenge, Sam Wilson, which you have no choice but to accept is to strip down to your underwear right now and stay that way until it’s time for all of us to go home,” Bucky dared with a semi-evil glint in those otherwise playful eyes.

Sam refused, then complained, then begged off from having to do Bucky’s challenge amidst Bucky’s heckling and Tony’s catcalls of encouragement that he take his kit off because it wasn’t anything that they haven’t seen or got themselves. “Be thankful that it wasn’t me who challenged you—I’d’ve made you buy us more beer from the 7-11 three blocks away in the buff or something. Bucky’s challenge was actually horribly tame,” Tony teased, rebuilding the _UNO Stacko_ tower again.

“Nice underwear, man,” Bucky teased Sam once the latter had stripped down to his tatty, Walmart-bought, checkered boxer-briefs that had definitely seen better days three years ago.

“I didn’t exactly dress up tonight thinking I’d be exposing my drawers to you, fuckers, a’ight?” Sam protested before another game was underway again.

Steve didn’t get so lucky that second game. The damn tower of blocks collapsed just as he was trying to place his block at the topmost tier. Dreading having to strip down and buy beer himself if that was going to be the tenor of the challenges, Steve fidgeted in his seat, but he didn’t have long to wait because Tony immediately jumped at the chance of challenging Steve.

“Go on a date next Saturday. There’s this exclusive club we might be able to get into, and I have just the perfect girl to introduce you to. I’ll take care of everything—all you have to do is show up to meet her,” Tony challenged.

Bucky catcalled his encouragement while Sam protested anew, “what?! His challenge is to go on a goddamned _date_ while I have to sit here nearly naked, amidst you fools for the rest of the night, getting a draft up my privates?! That’s not justice!”

Like Sam, Steve started begging off from the challenge like it was such a great hardship to go on a date with someone that Tony Stark (with his type and so-called impeccable standards) was going to introduce to him. Bucky heckled some more ( _“There’s no harm in going on one date, Stevie—_ one date _! Come on!”_ ); Tony cajoled ( _“You can’t_ not _accept the challenge, Rogers. That’s not how this works. You have to do the challenge.”_ ); and Sam whined ( _“I ain’t sittin’ here in the nastiest underwear I own for the amusement of you assholes, to endure your being a goddamned spoilsport, Rogers. You’re going on that date, or so help me—“_ ).

“Fine, fine!” Steve said, raising a hand to halt all the loud protestations. “ _Fine_. I’ll go to this club and meet this girl next Saturday. But it’ll be a one-off—that doesn’t mean I intend to go crazy for all the Saturday nights of my foreseeable future,” he clarified, enunciating the words as clearly as he could so there would be no misunderstanding about what the coming Saturday was supposed to mean to him. “And just so you punks can shut up and get off my case.”

“Good enough for me,” Bucky replied too quickly. “So another game?” He asked, stacking the blocks himself in preparation for another round.

Bucky must have really gotten good at _UNO Stacko_ because it was Sam who collapsed the block tower again much to his dismay. Tony challenged him that time to put on some fishnet stockings that one of Tony’s bed partners had left in his apartment as a memento of their memorable night together. When Steve and Bucky calmed down enough from their belly-aching laughter, they teased and whistled at their friend. Sam settled in quiet resignation but his eyes betrayed his annoyance.

It was also then that Steve and Sam shared an unspoken conspiracy to start ganging up on Tony so they could get back at the latter. Soon after that, Tony suffered some tough turns in their next game with Sam and Steve dealing as many _Draw Two_ and _Reverse_ blocks for Tony to get as many chances as possible to upset the precarious _UNO Stacko_ tower. The brunette caught on to what the two were trying to accomplish and gave as good as he got. But in the end: comeuppance—as the tower toppled in a great crash during Tony’s next turn.

“Goddammit!” Tony cussed just as Bucky roared in laughter.

“I think I’ll take this one, guys. I have _the perfect challenge_ for this one,” Steve said, relishing the opportunity. He did have a perfect challenge in mind—one that would enable him to catch up on sleep that he’d been missing for over a month now. One that would enable him to get back at Tony for adding to his already pent-up sexual frustration. And hopefully, one that would burn through any latent and unhealthy fascination he might have for his neighbor—if he could take Tony down a notch and make shit of the confidence that the man had in truckloads, then maybe he could stop feeling like offering himself up to Tony every time he saw the man shirtless.

“What’s the challenge? Do I buy more beer from 7-11 in the nude—‘cause I can totally do that—“

“Overconfident sonofabitch,” Sam muttered with a sneer and a shake of his head at Tony’s cheek.

“The _challenge_ , Tony Stark, and you have no choice but to accept it,” Steve began. “Is to abstain from _any_ sexual activity for the next thirty days.” Steve watched Tony’s face crumble from attractive confidence to complete horror in the span of two seconds.

Steve could hardly keep the corners of his lips from twitching into a barely concealed smile of glee at that.


	3. Chapter 3

“You. Have _got_. To be fucking kidding me!” Tony huffed, indignant and disbelieving. Then, vigorously shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest, said, “No. _Fucking_. Way!”

He couldn’t believe the balls on that man! If there ever was a time that Tony had counted Steve among his friends, he wanted to take it back. This man _was not_ his friend. This man was out to get him.

He didn’t know whether to loathe Rogers or admire him for having the absolute audacity to dare Tony to quit sex for thirty fucking days. Rogers might as well tell him to stop eating or thinking, because really, what the man was asking him to do was to forego a _way of life_.

He liked sex, OK—if everyone was going to be nitpicky about it—he _loved_ sex. It took his mind off inconsequential things. It wasn’t complicated. It was an escape. Plus, he was exceptionally good at it if the blissed out expressions common to his bed partners’ faces night after night were anything to go by. He’d been like this, living the life of a Lothario, for a little over five years now since he had moved on from the trauma that was him trying to fight a father figure-trusted person in his life for his birthright and his parents’ supposed legacy.

No one knew about that—about what really went down that made him give up _Stark Enterprises_ , about what really happened between him and his father’s long-time friend and his own bloody godfather, Obadiah Stane, who’d tried to sabotage what little good will the company had left, double dealt under the table, probably had something to do with Tony’s parents’ car accident even, and masterminded Tony’s kidnapping just to get him out of the picture for Stane to get the company for himself—to do with it whatever he pleased.

Stane had almost succeeded, too, if Tony had not fought tooth and nail to escape the clutches of his abductors and uncover the necessary evidence to implicate Stane in all his crimes against _Stark Enterprises_ and Tony. None of that made the papers or the society pages—not the double-dealing or the kidnapping and murder attempt. Stane had used Tony’s lifestyle as a wild child, who would sometimes vanish for long periods at a time to party and drug himself up to his eyeballs, as cover-up for when Tony got abducted on his order.

It was only after the younger Stark had narrowly escaped his abductors and the plot to kill him that anyone got wind of some kind of conflict in the company. Tony had felt so betrayed and distraught that he just wanted nothing to do with Stane or _Stark Enterprises_ so he confronted Stane and told him to turn himself in without resistance on pain of suffering a media shitstorm once Tony took Stane’s betrayal public, and sold all of his interest in the company. Tony’s abandonment had caused the company’s collapse what with all of the other major shareholders jumping ship right afterwards, and with his crimes about to come to the fore as well, Stane saw it fit to quit while he was ahead and committed suicide by staging a boating accident.

Tony had decided to bury all of his issues beneath the carefree, fuck-anything-that-moves personality because he didn’t want to have to confront the cold, hard truth that Tony’d had trouble trusting anyone since the deal that had gone down with Stane.

And now, this upstart asshole of a neighbor of his wanted him to forego sex—when _sex_ was the only thing keeping him relatively sane and normal, or as normal as it was possible for one Tony Stark.

His adamant refusal to accept the challenge was met with loud protests from Bucky and Sam, especially from Sam who again brought up the completely humiliating fact of him sitting there in his old knickers and fishnet stockings courtesy of Tony.

“Hang on, hang on,” Tony placated, raising a palm to get everyone to shut their traps. “Even if I were to do the challenge—which I’m not saying I will—how can you guys even ensure that I would comply? It’s not like I’d let you install a CCTV in my apartment just so you could keep tabs on me, and—and thirty days is a _long_ time. I can probably give you—and again, I’m not saying I will—a week, tops. A week with no sex.”

“You think this is something that’s up for negotiation?” Steve asked, haughtily.

“Sam’s challenge ends when we call it a night. Yours is to go out on _one_ date. Why does mine have to last thirty days? That’s just unfair!”

“Unfair?!” Steve spat in a huff. “You wanna know what’s _not fair_? What’s not fair is that I’ve hardly gotten any sleep since you moved in—thirty-four days, Stark. For _thirty-four days_ I’ve been privy to all sorts of sex-related noises shamelessly and uninhibitedly coming from your apartment. And I. Am. Fucking. Sick of it! I was thinking of lodging a complaint with the super, but I don’t think they can remedy the matter short of knocking the building down and erecting it back up with military-grade five feet-thick concrete walls or kicking you out for being a public nuisance. Which—God help me—I’m not nearly asshole-y enough to resort to because— _God help me_ , I must be out of my mind—my friends and I happen to like you when you’re not keeping me up all night—night after night—having to listen to a sex marathon. And the lack of sleep’s been making me cranky all day at work only to go home at night and have to listen to more of you violating a different bed partner and it’s a vicious cycle! A godawful _thirty-four-day_ vicious cycle. And it stops—it stops right now,” Steve blathered on, positively seething that it shut Tony’s protestations up well and good. “You’re going to accept this challenge, Stark, and I’m getting my sanity back, whether you fucking like it or not!”

Everyone in the room was quiet as the grave for a while. Something told Tony that Steve wasn’t in the habit of erupting in anger like this. The silence was only starting to become stifling when Sam spoke to finally break it: “And that, gents, is what sexual repression does to a person—“

“Shut up, Sam,” retorted Steve just as Tony opened his mouth supposedly to agree with Sam. Steve narrowed his eyes at Tony as if to dare the latter to spit out what he had been planning to say.

Tony bit his lip uncertainly and simultaneously raised a finger as a placating gesture again. “O—kaaay… One, I didn’t know that this building has such pathetically thin walls. Before I signed the tenancy agreement and paid my deposit, the building’s super assured me— _profusely_ —that the walls were built with the utmost privacy in mind. Two, I also didn’t know that you’re that much of a light sleeper that you can actually hear what goes on in my apartment from _way_ across the hall. Three, my activities were in no way undertaken with the single-minded goal of annoying you, so if I had annoyed you, know that it was completely unintentional on my part. Four, there are far better remedies to your sleep deprivation than cockblocking me, Rogers, trust me—I can get a lifetime’s supply of _Valium_ for you or some other— _stronger_ —sleeping pills; I can sound-proof my apartment, your apartment and the goddamn hallway that you won’t even hear the fucking _apocalypse_ or World War III happening outside,” offered Tony. He knew it was far from an apology, but he felt like he didn’t have anything to be sorry to Steve for. This was how Tony was—he slept around and he had never made a secret of it. If Steve had a problem with that then he should have said something to Tony instead of bearing it with gritted teeth only to retaliate later on with this much vindictiveness.

Steve narrowed his eyes further and stubbornly asked, “so you’re saying you _can’t_ do it.”

Tony furrowed his own brows and met Steve’s gaze full-on. Say what? “Say that again.”

“ _You can’t do it_. You can’t handle living thirty days of your life without sex,” Steve shrugged, nonchalantly, while Sam and Bucky wordlessly watched them like the most exciting tennis match there ever was. “This is textbook. You know, my therapist in the army had the perfect description for someone like you, Stark.”

Oh no, he didn’t! He didn’t just namedrop his damn _shrink_ in this conversation… Don’t you say it, boy—don’t you fucking say it! “ _Don’t_ …” Tony warned, shaking his head at Steve ominously. He could actually feel his left eye twitching.

“An insecure, needy, affirmation-seeking _douche_ who uses sex as a smokescreen to hide what in reality is his utter lack of confidence,” Steve described with pure vitriol even Sam, from out of the corner of Tony’s eye, muttered ‘ouch!’ under his breath.

OK—that was off the bull’s eye by about a hair, and Tony visibly bristled at how close Steve came to stumbling upon the payload of Tony’s many, many issues. “Yeah? Well—how far removed is that from what _you_ are, Rogers? I’m gonna own being a douche, if you admit to being a miserable, _spineless_ jackass who doesn’t know how to fucking move on from the girl who had only probably cheated on him because being with him was about as exciting as watching paint dry,” Tony spat back with a shit-eating smirk that only a fucking saint or a blind person would not have found completely offensive.

Silence suddenly reigned in the room as if both Steve and Tony’s anger and desire to bait the other had already been spent. The unwilling spectators, Sam and Bucky, kept their own mouths shut lest they trigger another wave of traded insults that were beginning to sound eerily like a bastardized version of ‘ _Yo Momma’s so ugly…_ ’ exchanges.

“You know what? You seem to know me so well—you’ve got me all fucking figured out. But you know nothing,” said Tony evenly. “I’m going to humor you and your friends, Rogers. I accept your challenge, if only to be able to watch in amusement how you’d ensure my compliance to it. There’s no way you can keep an eye on me 24/7 for thirty days to make sure that I’m keeping my junk in my pants,” derided Tony, self-assured that at the end of thirty days, he was going to get the last laugh.

“Watch me,” Steve dared back, narrowing his eyes at Tony.

“No, but Steve—he has a point. How are you going to know he’s not doing the nasty at work? Or on the way to and from work?” Sam asked, pointing out the more problematic logistics to keeping Stark in line. “You’ve got a full-time job. Don’t tell me you’re going to be Tony’s flunky-slash-bodyguard-slash-keeper for the next _thirty days_ because, I’m telling you, getting several nights’ sleep ain’t worth that much effort.”

“I can ask his assistant, Pepper, to help me keep an eye on him at work. I can ask our neighbors from the lower floors to keep tabs on him when he’s home. I can pass by his building on my way home and we can commute back here together so I’d know he won’t be picking anyone up on the way for a night of pointless debauchery—the point is, Sam, that I have my ways to make sure I’m getting those thirty days of quality sleep that he bloody owes me,” retorted Steve with a half-growl.

“Like Pepper’s really going to help you with that,” scoffed Tony. But at the back of his mind, he was uncertain as to Pepper’s real loyalties this time around especially since Tony knew she never approved of his philandering lifestyle. But he tried not to show Steve his doubt.

“You wanna test that theory?” Steve asked with an inquiring raise of an eyebrow.

Goddammit!

“He needs an incentive,” Bucky suddenly piped up and everyone turned towards him. “Some kind of reward at the end of the thirty-day toil—or, or _motivation_ for him to keep his _junk in his pants_. Psychology-wise, devising a reward system is more effective than monitoring when it comes to ensuring compliance,” he said with a shrug and a purse of his lower lip.

“But that’s on the assumption that there’s even a reward valuable and desirable enough in all the world that would appeal to Tony,” stated Sam, his own shameful state of undress seemingly forgotten in the face of the stand-off between Steve and Tony.

Tony rolled his eyes and cocked his head towards Sam in wordless agreement. He was fucking _Tony Stark_ —rich, whip-smart, ingenious, sexy and good-looking; there was hardly anything in the face of the globe that he couldn’t get if he even had one speck of desire to want that something.

The rest of the occupants in the room turned their attention to him, question in their eyes. And being put on the spot, Tony drew a blank. There was absolutely nothing in the world he wanted right now but to dismiss any talk of foregoing the lifestyle he had already grown very comfortable with.

When Tony was not forthcoming with anything he thought could be enough to motivate him, Bucky tried prompting him, “everyone wants something and even if you’re rich and well-connected, there’s gotta be something you want bad enough to spur you on to see this challenge through to the end.“

“—but it’s gotta be something that’s possible for us—for _me_ —to deliver,” Steve forewarned, raising a hand and looking around at all of them meaningfully. “’Cause if you say you want an _orgy_ with Rihanna, Kendall Jenner and Megan Fox in one night, I could be freakin’ _Barack Obama_ and not be able to make that happen for you.”

Then it hit Tony. There _was_ something he wanted after all, and incidentally, it was something that Steve could give him—that _only_ Steve could give him. But he didn’t think the company they had was ready to hear the incentive he wanted. He had to play his cards right. He had to get Steve to agree. So he thought that, for now, the best way to go about it was to wait for the right moment to spring his condition upon the person who was brave enough to challenge him.

“Let me think about that for a while…” Tony promised, making a show of looking pensive about the incentive he was willing to endure this challenge in the name of.

“It’s probably something to do with sex,” Sam muttered to Bucky under his breath but Tony was able to catch.

Well—he wasn’t wrong. And now that the stakes got considerably more interesting, there was no way that Tony was losing this challenge. For several heartbeats, he was almost sorry for Steve, but the feeling passed quickly and anticipation took its place.

They went back to blowing avatars up on _Call of Duty_ , agreeing that they’ve already had enough excitement for one night. Tony kept silent for the rest of the evening in the pretense that he was still thinking about what kind of incentive to ask from the one who had challenged him.

“So I’ve thought about it…” Tony brought the topic up when he and Steve were alone in the landing, having just called it a night and seen their friends off down the building staircase. “I know just the thing that will make me keep at this…challenge.”

“Let’s hear it then,” Steve offered. “It’s gotta be something that’s feasible, Tony. I mean, we all probably want to go 12 for 12 with the _Maxim_ cover girls, but even Hugh Hefner would have a bit of a problem cutting that.”

“Been there, done that. It wasn’t that hard if I was able to accomplish that _twice_. No… this is definitely something that you can do,” Tony said by way of a teaser.

“So what is it?”

“I want to have sex with someone I’ve never had sex with before,” Tony declared to much eye-rolling from Steve.

“Shoulda known… Is it always going to be about sex with you?” Steve asked exasperatedly. Then, sighing loudly through the nose, added, “you said it’s something _possible_ …but for me to find someone you’ve never slept with, I’d have to—what—leave the state, travel as far _west_ _and_ _north_ as I can until I hit Siberia or something? Then I’d have to be on leave from work for goodness knows how long and charge an obscene amount of money to my credit card, looking for this _rare_ person you’ve never slept with.”

“You really have a bone to pick with how I like my life, don’t you?” Tony asked with a disbelieving shake of his head. “No seriously though—you’re in luck because there’s actually someone closer to home I haven’t slept with,” Tony practically started purring, looking at Steve through the curtain of his long raven lashes. He wanted it unmistakable who it was Tony was thinking of and considering as his incentive to finish the god-awful challenge he was saddled with.

Watching Steve’s face as it dawned on him what Tony was trying to say was, by far, the most interesting thing Tony had seen all week—there was the slight tic of realization, followed by the sheer mortification, the blushing, the jaw clenching and the blinking. “Me. The incentive you want is to sleep with me,” Steve softly said, most probably fighting down the vocal tremors that was the tell-of-all-tells that would give away how unsettled he was by the idea.

“Got it in one. Good job,” Tony praised with a smirk that he had been told time and again was one of his greatest weapons in his coquetry arsenal. “So—how about it, neighbor. How precious is getting thirty nights of quality sleep to you? Will it be worth it, you think?”

Tony noticed Steve swallow, but each refused to be the one to break eye contact. “What makes you so sure I’d agree to this? I don’t bat for your team, Tony,” said Steve gravely.

Tony impudently snorted still without breaking eye contact. Actually, he didn’t know whether Steve even swung that way, and frankly, he didn’t care. He was challenged to have to sacrifice sex for thirty bloody days; Steve could be fucking _married_ , with three kids, and Tony would still have no qualms making a deal with the blonde about this particular incentive. He made sure to let Steve know how he didn’t give two shits about that. “Do I look like I care which team you bat for? This is my condition, Rogers. I’m getting the incentive I asked for or the whole challenge is off. I’m sure the pharmacy can dispense extra strong sleeping pills for you or if you’re desperate enough—horse tranquilizers or something.

“Oh wait, _wait_ —don’t tell me… You’re too _chicken_ to commit to giving me what I asked for. If you’re so sure that I can’t do this challenge, then it should be no problem for you to put your _virtue_ where your mouth is,” Tony dared, narrowing his eyes at Steve as if reading the latter’s tells like a fucking elementary storybook. 

Steve visibly clenched his jaw, looking for all the world like he was grappling with a vicious internal debate on the matter. Breathing a deep sigh through the nose, he began to speak, “thirty days and nights of _absolutely_ no sexual activity—anywhere, not in your workplace, your car and _definitely_ not in your apartment—or with anyone, male or female, by themselves or part of a group. No penetration in any orifice, hand jobs, fondling or oral sex. No masturbation—mutual or otherwise—“

“—so kissing is all right? How about necking?” Tony interrupted, feigning the beginnings of his own panic at what he was getting himself into. And at the same time, impressed at Steve’s knowledgeable vocabulary of sexual activities that Tony didn’t think to give him credit for.

“I guess, kissing is all right,” Steve conceded. “But anything below the shoulders will violate the challenge.”

“You know what has to happen now, neighbor,” Tony drawled, smirking anew. “I will only accept the challenge if you undertake to give me the incentive I asked for should I succeed.”

“Don’t be too sure of yourself, _neighbor_ ,” Steve intoned in a low voice. There was still a bit of a pause, like he was steeling himself to hammer the proverbial last nail on his coffin. “Fine. If you can do the challenge, then you’ll get your incentive.” _–which I seriously doubt_ was left unsaid, but the wordless implication hung heavy between them.

“Shake on it?” Tony asked, batting his eyelashes sweetly and offering his hand out to Steve. “So do we start immediately? Tomorrow? Let’s just say I’m excited to prove you wrong and collect on that prize…”

Steve took the proffered hand and shook it once. “I’ll let you have tomorrow as a last hurrah before you start the challenge on Monday. I’m nice like that,” the blonde said, smiling as sweetly as a fox in a henhouse; and then added just as he was opening the door to his own apartment, “but don’t think for one second that this makes me soft or lenient with the latitudes I intend to give you, because you’re not getting that incentive unless I’m satisfied that you’ve strictly fulfilled the terms of the challenge.”

“How very benevolent of you,” Tony scoffed, walking towards his own apartment door. His mind was already racing with plans for the next day when he had free rein of his depravity before the beginning of his thirty-day celibacy on Monday. He was anything but looking forward to it, not even with the sweet, sweet promise of the incentive waiting for him at the end of the grind.

But—hey—no one could deny that it was going to be a pretty interesting thirty days.


	4. DAY 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The challenge to stay away from all forms of sex begins...

Pepper was speaking in a hushed voice into her smartphone when Tony sauntered out of his apartment building at exactly 8:00 on Monday morning. She gave Tony a cursory look, offering his car’s keys to him, and all the while conversed with whoever was on the other end of her mobile phone line.

At least, she seemed chipper that morning. There was none of the surliness and bad temper that usually accompanied the mornings after Tony’s more legendary Nights of Debauchery. The absolutely murderous look on Pepper’s face when Tony had pulled an all-nighter with the entire New York Knicks cheerleading squad was still quite fresh in his mind after all. That incident taught him an important life lesson: don’t ever let Pepper meet whoever it is he had taken to bed the night before unless he wants to be torn a new one. And that has worked out well for him so far.

His mouth curled in distaste, however, when it occurred to him that he wouldn’t have anything to hide from Pepper for the next thirty days when he was supposed to live like a castrated monk.

Tony tried to bring himself out of his funk by recalling the events of the night before. In the company of delicious and uninhibited fraternal twins, Kent and Kimberly ‘we share everything’ Peterson, whom Tony had met in the park earlier that same day after he’d had coffee with his friend, Rhodey. His activities the night before with the titillating twins were sure to feed Tony’s overactive imagination and tide him over for the next fortnight or so, Tony hoped, but he was going to have to rein in his fantasies because, as was agreed upon, even masturbation was not an option for him for the next month.

They were both sliding into the car—Tony on the driver’s seat and Pepper on the front passenger seat—when Pepper said her jovial goodbyes and ended the call.

“Who was that?” Tony asked without preamble, starting the car, fiddling with the rearview mirror because it was adjusted to his driver—Happy’s line of sight, putting it on drive and maneuvering out of the parking slot.

“Good morning to you, too,” Pepper segued, turning towards him with a bright smile. Tony just scowled in reply. It should be illegal to be this cheery so early in the morning on a day when Tony Stark had absolutely nothing to look forward to but a cold and lonely night. “How was your weekend? Did anything interesting happen?”

Yes, he got screwed over into agreeing not to screw anyone—not even himself!—for an entire month. If that wasn’t ‘interesting’, Tony didn’t know what was. “I was the filling in a hot fraternal twins sandwich last night—interesting enough for your taste, Potts?”

“Eurgh—you know I’ve no desire to hear about your sexual escapades, Tony, gross. I hope you used _protection_ , because that sounds…nasty,” Pepper retorted, rolling her eyes and curling her lips at Tony before turning her eyes to the screen of her smartphone to possibly get a head start in answering her gajillion emails that had come through over the weekend.

“You know I always do. I mean, what were you expecting I’d say when you asked me how my weekend was? You know my ‘sexcapades’ are the only thing of note in my otherwise _dismal existence_ ,” Tony answered melodramatically, signaling a turn and studiously looking at both sides of the intersection.

“Dismal existence huh? That’s definitely _not_ how Steve put it.”

“Steve?” Tony gave an honest-to-God shudder at that. Steve wouldn’t; would he?! Tony remembered Steve saying something about asking Pepper to police him at work, make sure he wasn’t sticking it to some hapless colleague of his in the relative seclusion of his office or the copy room or somewhere halfway convenient just to get his rocks off.

“Yeah— _Steve_. Your neighbor with—and I’m quoting you on this— _the pecs and the ass worthy of worship_? He called me.”

“ _When_?! How did he even get your number?” Tony couldn’t help the accusation from lacing his voice, like Pepper had dealt him the utmost betrayal of fraternizing with the enemy. Because right now and for the next thirty days, Steve Rogers was the enemy.

“Remember that day you introduced us?” Pepper awarded Tony with her full attention, her emails momentarily forgotten and her phone face down on her rose gold pencil-skirted lap. “Well—after I left you, I gave his apartment another knock and exchanged numbers with him, you know, in case of any emergency concerning you. And I wanted the earliest heads-up in case you make things that go boom and accidentally demolish your building—“

“—oh my God, Pep, that was _one time_!” Tony cut her off, protesting. And in his defense, it _was_ only one time, and it wasn’t because he’d miscalculated or because he had not slept for 56 hours previously, and definitely not because he’d just had an orgy with three very, very flexible yoga instructors who had also happened to be learned in the art of the Kama Sutra, no—it wasn’t because of any of those things, but because the building was old and was found to have been in violation of three construction and sanitation regulations. “And besides, I ended up buying the building and remodeling it so it was a win-win,” he said, petulantly.

“I don’t think we have any leftover capex this year for any real estate acquisitions, so don’t even think about blowing your current apartment building up,” Pepper admonished, slapping him backhandedly on the bicep. “Besides, I think you’ve annoyed Steve enough with your _nightly activities_ , we don’t need you to light up your apartment building sky high on top of that.”

“Goddammit—what did he tell you?” Tony was seething. Why was Steve out to ruin his life? What had he ever done to the guy? Tony thought he was being a nice enough neighbor: he wasn’t argumentative; he smiled a lot at his neighbors; he’d kept his cat from shitting all over the place and making too much of a racket; he took his garbage out properly and everything. And yet, Steve was still so…vindictive.

“He was the one I was talking to just now, in fact. He told me about the Celibacy Challenge and requested if I could keep an eye on you in the office, make sure you weren’t doing the nasty while you’re there,” Pepper relayed, evidently pulling the reins on her glee. “I told him that it would be my pleasure because, anyway, you are expected to show up at the office every day for the next four weeks or so for product development, so I’d definitely be able to keep an eye on you.”

“You didn’t!” Tony was aghast. How could Pepper do this to him? Actually, a part of him was already expecting this since the first instance that Steve hinted at engaging Pepper’s help to police Tony’s activities. He just didn’t think that Steve would still go through with it after they’ve already agreed on the Incentive System rather than the Policing System.

So this was how Steve was going to play it then.

“I totally did. I think it’s awesome and funny as hell. I don’t know why I never thought of this myself,” Pepper teased. “I’m just wondering, though… What made you agree to it? I mean, you’re probably more prepared to chop your dick off yourself with a blunt knife while sporting a poker face than give up sex for thirty days—so what gives?”

Tony almost choked on his own spit. He very well couldn’t tell Pepper what was at stake if he could successfully do the challenge because she would most likely scream her head off at him before popping a vein and bleeding all over his French leather car upholstery. “Steve was so cocksure that I can’t do it. I didn’t like that. So I’m gonna prove him wrong and gloat about it to his face.”

“So…bragging rights? That’s all there is to it?”

“Sure.” Tony was going to hell.

“Shoot—I give it a _week_. Tops,” Pepper snorted.

Tony stole a side-glance at her, offended. “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence. I am blown away by your utmost _faith_ in me. What kind of a friend are you?”

“A friend who’s known you for the longest time— _too long_ , in fact—that I _know_ with every fiber of my being that there’s no way on God’s green earth that you can abstain from any sexual activity for thirty days,” Pepper said with conviction. “Kiss any possibility of getting bragging rights over Steve goodbye.”

“You’re just another non-believer who needs converting,” Tony said with an irritated curl to his upper lip. “I’ll prove you wrong; you’ll see.”

“Oh—believe me—this, I would pay good money to see,” said Pepper with a snicker.

-0-0-0-

Tony froze in his tracks in the middle of the reception area to the _Stark Industries_ offices when he saw none other than the friendly neighborhood Steve Rogers studiously bent over a piece of decorative art atop a side table like it was the most fascinating thing he had seen all year. Tony was on his way to leave the office after a productive day at work to get some dinner before going home like the cockblocked, ascetic monk that he was supposed to be with nothing to look forward to but one of the longest nights of his life, cartoons reruns and a tub—or four—of Ben &Jerry’s. And now Rogers was there right in his face like a 200lb.-of-pure-muscle reminder that Tony’s sex life would be the least exciting there was for the next four weeks.   

“What the bloody fuck are you doing here, Rogers?” Tony opened by way of _Hello_.

“Your building is right along my way back home like I told you last Saturday. I’m here to accompany you on our way back to the apartment, so I can be sure that you won’t be making any _undesirable stops_ along the way,” Steve said with his trademark sheepish smile. Like Tony didn’t know how that smile hid behind it a load of bullcrap!

“I thought we made it clear that there was no need to police me like this?” Tony hissed, walking up to Steve and invading the latter’s personal space. “I’ll hold up my end of the bargain and you hold up yours when I succeed.”

“You mean _if_ you succeed, right?” Steve hissed back. “Let’s just say that I’m doing this to make sure you deserve what was coming to you _if_ , indeed—by some glorious miracle, you succeed.”

“So you don’t trust me?”

“Aww, am I that obvious?”

“Why did we even establish an incentive if you’re going to police me anyway?” Tony asked, irritated. And then lowering his voice to angry hissing again, continued, “you’re all about justice and fairness—tell me—how is this fair that I’m supposed to have faith in you that you’ll put out _when_ I fulfill the terms of your godawful challenge, and you can’t even give me the same courtesy of having faith in me that I’ll keep it in my pants when I said I would?”

“It’s not,” answered Steve evenly, walking towards the banks of elevators with Tony thundering behind his heels. “Then again, I have more to lose at the end of thirty days, don’t I? Because unlike you, I don’t do casual sex. What this incentive asks of me is completely against my morals and my personal principles. But since it’s the incentive you asked for, I’m willing to make the necessary sacrifice in response to yours. _However_ , if I _am_ sacrificing my _principles_ here, I should at least make sure that the person I’m sacrificing them for deserves it,” Steve mumbled back, reddening in the face—whether from anger or embarrassment, Tony didn’t want to ask.

“So what now—you’ll be walking me home and dogging my heels for the next thirty days, is that what you’re saying?”

“If I have to,” Steve said, jutting out his chin defiantly.

“You know what— _fine_ … I don’t give a rat’s ass. Do whatever floats your boat. But I’m telling you—I better have what’s coming to me after thirty days of this bullshit or you’ll never hear the end of it,” Tony threatened, baring his teeth at Steve, and angrily pressed the button to call for the elevator.

There was tension so thick that Tony could have cut with a cleaver as they rode the elevator down to the building lobby. Tony thought he could hear Steve gnashing his teeth in the stifling silence. Tony’s car was already parked in front of the lobby by the time they made it out of the building. Thankfully accepting the keys from the building valet, Tony wordlessly slid into the driver’s seat while Steve awkwardly remained standing on the curb.

“What are you still standing around there for? If you’re escorting me back to the apartment, you’re riding this car because I as sure as hell am not taking the subway home,” Tony called out to him through the half-open window. Steve shuffled to the other side of the car and slid into the front passenger seat with a bit of hesitation.

“Well—since you’re here and everything, it looks like you’ll be joining me for dinner,” said Tony with resignation. If he was coming into the office for the day, it was customary for Tony to eat dinner in one or other of his favorite restaurants all over midtown before going off to a bar, wine-tasting in a hotel or gala at the MET in search of an interesting companion for the night. He wasn’t about to change his habits because of this goddamn Celibacy Challenge even if, for now, he was not supposed to take anyone home with him for a night of some awesome fucking.    

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll just eat dinner at home,” Steve declined the not-quite-invitation for dinner.

“And—what—you’ll watch me while I eat? Not bloody likely,” Tony scoffed, signaling a turn from one bustling midtown avenue to another. He was thinking of dinner at _Vertice_ , one of his favorite Italian restaurants.

Once they were queued for valet parking at _Vertice_ , Steve visibly gave a start and said, “Tony, I can’t afford to eat here! One plate of pasta here probably costs an arm and a leg.”

“Unless you eat like the entire seating capacity of fourteen football fields, I can afford to pay for your dinner. We’re eating here,” Tony insisted, putting the car on park and getting out to relinquish it to a parking attendant. He didn’t look back to see if Steve’s followed him out of the car.

They were directed to a table fairly quickly because Tony was a regular of the place that even the owners knew him. All the wait staff that Tony met from the front door to where their table was smiled welcomingly at him. He even made meaningful eye contact with some people who had been part of the ever-continuous sexual education of one Tony Stark. Steve, on the other hand, looked about as comfortable as a man walking towards the gallows about two strides behind Tony.

Steve didn’t seem like he cared much for the difference between a penne pasta and a linguini one, only rattling off to Tony to order the cheapest fare they have on the menu for him so Tony saw it fit to order for the both of them. Tony ordered his favorite creamy seafood pasta for himself, his next favorite beef truffle pasta for Steve, some topnotch white wine and the pesto bread basket to share.

There was tense silence again once the waiter left after having taken their order. Steve was quiet and timid, preferring to look at everything there was to see that lent to the ambience of the restaurant, the well-dressed people dining around them and the heavenly-smelling food on silver trays going past their table—everything but at Tony. So for his part, Tony made eyes at and charmed their servers: the one who filled their goblets with water, the one who poured the wine for them, the one who delivered their on-the-house appetizer—he was generous with what he knew was his arresting smile except to Steve who was still stoically seated across from him.

Tony admitted inwardly that this was awkward. After all, he had only ever taken people here for dates that usually ended in—

“We shouldn’t have gone here. This is a _date_ place,” Steve interrupted Tony’s thoughts by leaning forward and voicing his astute observation through gritted teeth.

“This is one of my favorite restaurants. I go here two—maybe, three times every week. I’m not changing any more of my habits than what I have to because of this no-sex dare we’ve got going on,” Tony replied, sipping daintily from his wine flute. “After work, I enjoy eating out in one restaurant or another for dinner before heading back home. If you’re going to be policing my activities every night, this is something you’re going to have to deal with.”

Then, something occurred to Tony like a lightning bolt splitting an otherwise clear sky. He made a mental list of the current state of things: firstly, there they were, forced together by Steve’s sheer distrust of Tony’s willpower possibly every evening for the entire duration of the Celibacy Challenge; secondly, Tony needed something to keep his mind off his physical urges, keep his head in the game and his eye on the prize.

Stealing a surreptitious glance at his companion for the evening, Tony noted the plaid shirt and the uninspired black trousers that completely wasted the body that Tony knew Steve was hiding underneath the so-so clothes, and Tony actually had to fight down the knee-jerk reaction of wrinkling his nose in distaste.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, Steve—though he might not be aware of it himself—was badly in need of expert advice to get back in the thick of the social scene, get his self-confidence back up. Because if Tony was going to get the best value for his month-long blue balls, he needed to break Steve’s exterior shell of timidity to liberate the buckwild animal slumbering within.

Clearing his throat, Tony started to ease the conversation towards his epiphany, “don’t tell me that you think eating with a man in a date place cramps your style with the ladies?”

“It’s not that,” Steve denied, clenching his jaw.

“Hmm, well it’s certainly not because you’re worried that _you’re_ cramping _my_ style, is it? Because, really, you’re doing me a favor,” Tony said, leaning forward to reach for a pesto bun from the basket at the center of the table. “I can’t have sex with them anyway, so…”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say because Steve narrowed his eyes in annoyance again. “Wait— _what_? So there’s no use getting to know them because you can’t have sex with them? You give them the time of day _just_ to get them in the sack?” Steve asked in a tone that was a mixture of mild disgust and incredulity.

“Again, you make this sound so sleazy—“

“That’s ‘cause it _is_ ,” Steve interrupted, snatching a pesto bun from the center of the table himself. “Just because you don’t believe in relationships doesn’t give you the license to screw your way through the state of New York. I bet you don’t even know the names of two-thirds of the people you do it with. If that’s not your definition of sleazy, I don’t know what dictionary you’re using.”

“What exactly is your beef with me, Rogers?” Tony asked with an offended sniff. “It’s not like I’m seducing these people against their will or something. Everything’s consensual,” he continued. “And contrary to what you might think, a lot of high regard and care actually goes into—how did you put it?— _screwing my way through the state of New York_. I don’t just give random people the once-over and a come-hither finger and expect them to fall into bed with me. I study them, assess what works for them, make them feel relaxed and desired, appeal to both the higher level of their cognitive processes as well as their base urges, take them to heights of passion previously unknown to them. Then again, what would you know about seduction when your last girlfriend cheated on you and you haven’t been anywhere near the fringes of the dating scene in two years?”

Steve visibly flinched and Tony counted it as a win. In fact, Steve looked like he was ready to bolt if the heaping plates of yummy pasta had not arrived exactly at that time.

The brunette had to admit it, though, that it was damn funny seeing Steve conflicted between staring daggers at him and salivating over his pasta. The blonde didn’t make a move to eat despite the near-irresistible pull of a good serving of authentic Italian pasta, so Tony realized that he was going about this completely the wrong way.

“OK—look. I don’t want to mention your cheating girlfriend any more than I want to hear about you accusing me of corrupting the sexually active population of New York. I’m looking at a pretty miserable thirty days ahead of me here. And this is me trying to make the most out of a shitty situation,” Tony segued, raising a palm up in a placating gesture. “Believe it or not, I want to help you, Steve. It’s been a while since you’re in the dating scene, and Bucky and Sam are frothing at the mouth to have you get back out there.

“And let’s face it—you, Sir, are badly in need of a systemic upgrade. Top to bottom. Since you’re going to be keeping a close eye on me for the preservation of my virtue, I can use the time to point you to the right direction, give you the pointers, get you in the happening places and introduce you to the fish in the sea. You’ll be doing me a favor by keeping my mind off the sex that I’m missing. And after thirty days—voila!—I’d even do you the honor of… _well_ … ehrm…doing you—ehrm… Because you are probably pitifully—and laughably—out of practice, and we don’t want that, do we?” Tony knew he was on already on the precipice of rambling, so he hid his own discomfort by forking his food to evenly coat his pasta with the creamy seafood sauce. From out of the corner of his eye, he could see Steve’s ears pinking at the casual mention of what awaited both of them should Tony successfully abstain from any sex for the duration of the challenge.

“So if you can keep your morals and personal principles from having a full-on uprising due to hanging out with me, I think this is a real opportunity right here. Besides, you still have that date to go to on Saturday and we could make that as a take-off point or something,” Tony finished his pitch with a casual shrug, giving the impression that Steve can take it or leave it and it’d be no skin off Tony’s back.

Steve froze in his pasta-mixing, looked at Tony with narrowed eyes like he was seriously considering Tony’s suggestion. Then, Steve took a forkful of pizza to his mouth, chewed and swallowed without taking his eyes off the man seated across from him. Finally, with a determined exhale through the nose, he asked, “and you won’t hit on me?”

Tony raised an appraising eyebrow, biting his lips between his teeth. He was undecided whether to be amused or insulted.

“Only for academic purposes and if I’ve lost the will to live,” the brunette swore, foregoing his fork to solemnly trace a cross over his left breast.

Steve was still obviously suspicious for a bit until some tension vanished from his shoulders and he said, “yeah, OK. You’re right. It’s useless to keep arguing. I mean, you did agree to do the challenge already and I also agreed to your—ehrm, chosen incentive. So, yeah—I guess. Truce… And this is, umm, really good pasta, by the way.”

They ate in relative silence after that, their stasis interrupted only by refills of their water goblets and a hearty offer of dessert from a very chipper female server. Tony was as gracious as he always was, flirting slightly and smiling at the wait staff serving their table, aware that Steve was eyeing him with ill-concealed curiosity.

Once they were alone on the table, Steve shook his head ambiguously, wiping his mouth with a table napkin.

“What?” Tony asked curiously, taking another swig from his wine glass.

“No, no—I don’t mean that in a disapproving or judgmental way—“

“—right, of course, because I’d called a truce which you just accepted—“

“—but, I guess I’m just wondering how you do it,” Steve finished like Tony didn’t just try to interrupt him.

“Do what?” Tony asked, furrowing his brows.

“How do you get them interested in you?” Steve asked, feebly, and Tony suddenly wanted to pat that blonde head in pity. It seemed like Steve really had so much he needed to learn about seduction and dating that Tony had his work cut out for him.      

“All right...what you need to understand is that there’s no standard to this. There’s no surefire formula to getting women interested in you. You already have the looks and the boy-next-door vibe, but those can only get you so far,” Tony instructed, leaning forward again and planting his elbows on the edge of the table. “You also need strategy and cunning. Be like a predator who stakes out its prey and uses its instincts to know how best to get a kill. Who, when one strategy proves ineffective, can adjust on the fly to ensure that there’d only be one outcome: success.

“Take that girl in the salmon pink dress at your two o’clock,” Tony, with a subtle nod, motioned towards the person he wanted to direct Steve’s attention to. “See how she looks bored out of her mind with the clean-cut, all-American yuppie sitting right across from her? So we know that _your_ usual approach is useless here—you won’t get her eating out of the palm of your hand with bashful eye contact and a flushed smile,” he continued, self-assuredly. “Now—watch.”

Tony got his wineglass, took a small sip and, meeting the woman’s eyes through the rim of the wineglass, gave a smoldering and brazen look through his extraordinarily long eyelashes and coupled it with his trademarked come-on smirk—a slight upward twitch on one corner of his lips that Tony knew was both a restrained and unmistakable sign of his interest. The woman returned his gaze with a slight parting of her matte pink lips and the very subtle dilation of her pupils.

If today was just like any day in Tony’s life, he would already be asking for the check, then he would leave the restaurant through the aisle by the woman’s table without meeting her eyes again and hang out in the reception while the valet fetched his car, and the woman, on the other hand, would give her date some lame excuse and catch him up even before his car was even idling in front of the restaurant. And it would be a night of classic Tony Stark depravity.

The woman was pathetically easy to read, but Tony thought that it was good practice for Steve.

Steve seemed out of sorts as he watched the wordless exchange between Tony and the woman in the salmon pink dress. He looked partly dazed and awed at what had just happened, but he was saved from having to be ribbed mercilessly by Tony when their desserts arrived: a fresh fruit platter for Tony—because there was no use having a chocolate (aphrodisiac) dessert when he was facing the prospect of a companion-less evening; and a dark chocolate cheesecake and whipped cream in an elaborate Mason jar for Steve.

“Shame, really,” Tony began when they were in the middle of enjoying their dessert. “I’ve actually never had sex with that woman in the salmon pink dress before.”

“You never know. If she doesn’t mind waiting for thirty days for a turn with you, stud, she might be interested to take a number,” Steve snorted with an exasperated roll of his blue eyes.

Tony surprised even himself by giggling at Steve’s sass.

Sometime later on, they watched the woman in the salmon pink dress and her companion get up from their table to leave. The woman tried to catch Tony’s eye again, but Tony found the kiwis and honeydews on his dessert platter more interesting, so from out of the corner of Tony’s eye, the woman acknowledged defeat and hastily left with her date close behind her heels. Once the pair was gone, Tony motioned a passing server for their check.

Tony was pleasantly surprised when the restaurant’s owners’ daughter herself, Diana Novalli, gave him their check. “Diana,” Tony acknowledged with a quick kiss to the back of her proffered hand.

“Anthony,” Diana said with a fond smile, which was of course due to the fact she and Tony had had a memorable night together in the past. Diana, exceptionally beautiful and elegant as she was, was actually one of the few people that Tony had slept with more than once. “How did you like your dining experience tonight?” Diana asked, turning to Tony and then to Steve.

“Exquisite, as always,” came Tony’s response, drawing circles on the soft skin of Diana’s dainty hand with his thumb.

“We do aim to please,” said Diana with an innuendo-laden flick of her tongue on her lower lip.

Damn if tonight had not been the first day of Tony’s Celibacy Challenge, he would have already invited Diana back to his place. But he exhaled a deep breath and meaningfully met Steve’s eyes from across the table.

“I don’t believe we’ve met before,” Diana said, offering a hand to Steve. “Diana Novalli, we—that is, with my parents and siblings—own the restaurant.”

“Steve Rogers, ma’am. I’m, uh, Tony’s neighbor,” Steve introduced, his voice breaking a little. Tony couldn’t help but find it endearing.

“Your neighbor?” Diana turned towards Tony again.

“I left my old pad and transferred to a new neighborhood—quaint and understated,” Tony replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Maybe you can show me this new place of yours soon?”

“I haven’t really settled in, but I will,” Tony said by way of excuse. They said their hasty goodbyes, with Tony kissing Diana’s cheek this time, and stood up from the table.

On the way to the reception, Tony actually met several more of his past bed partners who had all been classy and discreet, made quick small talk with them—all under Steve’s close scrutiny. Tony noticed that Steve’s expression was becoming more and more thunderous by the second, realizing who these people really were.

Once they were on the curb, awaiting Tony’s car from the valet parking, Steve said with a measured exhale, “don’t tell me.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Tony responded, studying his shoes for lack of anything else to do.

“All those people? _All of them_?”

“I was actually telling you the truth when I said I haven’t slept with the girl in the salmon pink dress before,” answered the brunette cheekily. “What can I say? I’m good at reading people. I know what gets them all hot and bothered; I know what toots their horn.”

“ _You_ can’t be that good. No one’s _that_ good,” Steve said with conviction.

Tony smirked to himself before turning towards Steve with his most earnest, honest and coy smile sans teeth and bravado. He looked at Steve like he would the most beautiful and efficient piece of machinery that Tony had ever seen, with wonder and awe—like it was Steve who hung the moon and the stars. Because Tony knew what worked for Steve. Steve was the type to wear his emotions clearly on his face; he was noble and heroic, old-fashioned and caring. Tony knew that _his_ usual approach was useless for Steve. “I hope you enjoyed the evening, Steve,” he said evenly but with a demure smile and wide eyes that he knew was catching all the dramatic brilliance of the street lights.

Steve’s face went slack and his mouth quite literally fell open, and his blue eyes just about widened, making Tony notice the slight dilation to the blonde’s pupils. Whoever Steve was trying to convince when he said that he didn’t bat for Tony’s team was about to get the wake-up call of his fucking life!      

Tony was a fucking master at this seduction shit that he wanted to pump his fists in the air.

“I. Am. _That_ good,” Tony, leaning toward Steve, teased with a wink of his eye, breaking the spell. “Thank you—thank you very much!”

Steve shook his head with a vicious curl of his lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about because that had no effect on me at all,” huffily denied the other man.

Tony’s car pulled up before them and, snapping his right hand and motioning for the valet to lob the keys over to him, he told Steve with a self-satisfied grin before he walked towards his car: “keep telling yourself that, big boy.”


	5. DAY 2

To anyone who would care to ask, Steve was ready to plead temporary but massively debilitating insanity.

That was the only excuse he could think of for agreeing to his neighbor’s idea of a motivational incentive. Or maybe that was something he shared with Tony: he didn’t like being challenged and told that he was too chicken to do something.

That was the one peeve he had when he and Sharon were still together. He didn’t like it— _at all_ —when Sharon told him that he couldn’t do something or something was impossible when they haven’t even given it a shot. So it figured that even after two years of a Sharon-less existence, Steve was still toting _that_ piece of baggage around.

But it was maybe beginning to occur to Steve how he may have bitten off more than he could chew this time when he had dinner with Tony last night. If he had thought that Tony Stark was one sexy sonofabitch before, his neighbor’s hotness factor just about skyrocketed after last night when Steve himself was given the premiere front seats to the _Tony Stark Show_ and saw exactly how the brunette did it—ensnared his conquests like a deadly predator hunting his prey.

Tony was without a doubt enthralling to watch. Everything he did seemed so deliberate, like every move he made was sex personified. And Steve had nothing, _nothing_ on Tony Stark. Steve didn’t think it was possible to learn the magnetism that Tony so obviously had in droves. The blonde thought that it was either a person had _It_ or not.

Tony definitely had _It_. Steve could be tutored by Tony every night for thirty days, practice on every warm and willing body within a hundred-mile radius, read each and every published book on seduction and dating and never have even a smidgen of _It_. And that was the reason he had avoided dating like the plague. Because he didn’t think he could bear throwing his heart out there and come up short when pitted against the likes of Tony Stark.

 _Dating Lessons_ weren’t even what Steve had in mind when he went to fetch Tony from his office building and accompany him on the way back to their apartment building. He was just trying to protect his virtue, so to speak. Steve didn’t want to be roped into having to give Tony the incentive he asked for when all the while Tony was banging people in the copy room of his office or in the backseat of his car whilst parked in Wal-Mart or in the apartment of his Flavor of the Night, no. If he was going to sleep with Tony after thirty days of the Celibacy Challenge, then he wanted the brunette to really earn it.

But like Steve had already realized, he may have gone a tad overboard just to get a good night’s sleep because if he had thought that the late night-early morning cold showers would stop when Tony’s nightly conquests did, then he was sorely mistaken if his shower last night after having had dinner with Tony in _Vertice_ was anything to go by. He had literally stayed under a blast of cold water for forty-five minutes because of an awful, _awful_ hard-on that refused to go down no matter how much he thought of boner-abating things.

At least, by the time that Steve was ready for bed at around eleven in the evening, there was blessed silence all over the floor for the first time since Tony had moved in.

So even though his day at work was peppered with random recollections of how the previous evening with Tony had gone, Steve was still thankful for the little victory of having had quiet and sufficient sleep last night.

When five o’clock came signaling the end of the work day, Steve didn’t know if he was dreading or looking forward to the evening that lay ahead. Despite his indecision, he still didn’t dawdle but moved quickly and with purpose, shutting his computer off, fixing the folders on his desk, checking that he had mostly gotten through the stuff that needed his attention in his in-tray, and clocking out with nary a goodbye to his boisterous colleagues who were lounging by the biometric-identification Bundy clock in the reception area.

He was sure that if he wasn’t in the _Stark Industries_ reception area by the time that Tony left, the latter would have no second thoughts about giving him the slip. And then he would no longer be assured that Tony really didn’t do the nasty in the time it took him to travel from his office to their apartment building. This would result in them arguing again because Steve would try to call him out on keeping out of Steve’s watchful eye to do something inappropriate and Tony would accuse Steve anew of being overly distrustful.

Steve wanted to trust Tony; he really did, but after he was screwed over by Sharon, he knew it was going to be a long, long time before he could completely trust anyone again.

Besides, the stakes to Tony’s challenge was something that Steve was anything but prepared and equipped for. He wasn’t kidding when he told Tony that he didn’t do casual sex. For him, sex was something hallowed, something that wasn’t to be trifled with. He was giving something of himself to his partner just as his partner was giving something of theirs to him. It involved trust and intimacy that a one-time thing would completely bastardize.

But it _was_ what Tony asked for—mind, it completely came out of left field and something he didn’t expect that Tony would think of _at all_ —and Steve was nothing if not a man of his word. So he committed himself to do it: he was going to have sex with Tony, provided the latter fulfilled the terms of his challenge. Which Steve was willing to dog Tony for thirty nights for if it meant he would make sure that his sexual predator of a neighbor actually did.

It took him less than five minutes to sprint to Tony’s office building and make his way to the SI reception area. He had barely caught his breath when Pepper found him.

“Hey Steve,” she greeted with a wide and knowing smile. “Here to escort Tony home?”

“Yup,” answered Steve, popping the ‘p’ with a thin-lipped smile. He didn’t know exactly how much Pepper knew, if Tony had told her about the motivational incentive, but Steve himself had talked to her about keeping an eye on Tony whenever he couldn’t. To make sure that Tony didn’t do anything to violate their deal. And she had told him that she was more than happy to because she, too, thought Tony was in a self-destructive downward spiral with all the sex and the no-strings-attached relations.

“He’ll be out in a jiff. So…” Pepper trailed off, wiggling her eyebrows. “ _Day two_ , huh? You think he’s already secretly chipping the cement off from the walls of his room using his fingernails in pent-up agony?” There was a Cheshire cat smile on her classically-beautiful face. She may be secretly hiding an evil streak to her after all.

“I think the real kicker is when he can’t eat anymore because of how the table is shaking with the way he keeps jiggling his leg,” Steve answered with a shit-eating grin of his own. “I will definitely report to you when he’s in that stage already.”

“Yes please,” Pepper practically squealed in delight. “He’s yet to develop a vicious temper so I think we’re still good.”

“If you’re talking about me and finding some sick collective pleasure at my expense, you can stop right there,” Tony said, self-importantly striding into the room and not stopping until he was a couple of feet before the bank of elevators. Looking back at Pepper and Steve, though, he continued, “I am a classy gent who is prepared to deal with my anguish in quiet resignation. I will make it my life’s mission that you will never know my pain.”

Pepper rolled her eyes at that. “Well, be sure to keep him in your sights at all times, Steve. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to get off with just a subtle lower-lip bite and meaningful eye contact from someone who’s five paces away,” she warned.

“So I thought we could eat somewhere else tonight that I can actually afford,” Steve opened when he and Tony were already safely ensconced in the latter’s luxury sports car. “My treat,” he added. “Consider it a proper acceptance of our truce.”

“So considered,” said Tony, a lop-sided but sarcastic grin firmly in place. “You’ll have to give me directions to this happening place then, wherever that is.”

They negotiated the early evening rush hour of midtown in relative silence, interrupted only by occasional irritated mutterings from Tony about stupid drivers, stupid pedestrians, stupid bike messengers, stupid traffic enforcers, and stupid dog walkers. Soon enough they found themselves in the parking area of a hole-in-the-wall diner in the fringes of the bustling business district.

“They serve really good burgers, milkshakes and hotdog sandwiches here,” Steve said by way of selling the place to Tony once the latter had killed the engine, looking around if the parking area seemed safe enough.

“They don’t have much of an ambience, though, do they?” Tony asked, narrowing his eyes at the structure and at the neighborhood and possibly calculating the likelihood of getting stabbed as soon as they set foot out of the car.

“I promise that the food’s worth it,” Steve assured, bounding out of the car with a spring in his step. The place— _Pop’s Pad_ —was one of Steve’s favorites. He used to come here at least once a week before he and Sharon moved in together. Sharon didn’t like the place all that much, so Steve had only taken her twice and, after they became serious, had only visited once every couple of months and only if accompanied by either Sam or Bucky. He had not realized how much he missed coming to the place until he had decided earlier that day to take Tony there.

The bell hanging from the door tinkled when Steve pushed open the door and ushered Tony into the diner that was all pimped up in ‘50s and ‘60s décor. There were black and white movie posters in black wood frames, vinyl records and imitations of Andy Warhol’s art, blown up cartoon editorials from the decades where the rest of the interior decorations came from, an honest-to-God jukebox pushed against the far wall, checkered black and white booths with teardrop-shaped lighting hanging from overhead and plush red leather benches and stools along the counter where more vinyl records were laminated on the surface.

Being in the place sent a warm feeling in the pit of Steve’s stomach, like he was very much at-home there. Stealing a glance at Tony, Steve noted that Tony had a vaguely interested aura about him.

But that quickly devolved into horror when his eyes fell on a guy who was alone in the booth nearest the door. The guy had, of course, noticed them because there was just nowhere else for Tony to duck into from the front door. Like a magnet to metal, the guy sidled up to Tony in the blink of Steve’s eye. “Hey—fancy seeing you here, Tony,” the guy said in a breathy voice that Steve disliked immediately.

Tony looked he was trying to stave off an impending sneeze. “Uh hey… Matt—Mar—Mart—“

“—Lucas—“

“— _Lucas_ , that’s right!” Tony saved with a tight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and Steve wanted to snort.

“So what happened to you the morning after our date? You just vanished, and it got really uncomfortable being alone in your apartment so I just left…” Lucas trailed off, trying to hide the hurt from his voice. Steve couldn’t help but turn ever so slightly to Tony to see how the latter was going to worm his way out of this one.

“We-ell… We had that—uh—that…that _thing_ —that thing with the neighbors—what was that, Steve?” Tony turned to Steve with wide brown eyes, prompting him to make some sort of shady excuse.

Tony was an asshole—there was no doubt about it, putting Steve on the spot like this for the crappy way he treated the people gullible enough to sleep with him. Feeling his face crumple into a thunderous expression, Steve replied surly, “there was a tenants’ meeting—“

“—that’s _right_! A tenants’ meeting—very urgent. I had to attend in my boxers because it was a matter of extreme importance—a security risk, a—a theft in the lower floors,” Tony rambled, nodding. “Well, it was nice to bump into you…”

“—Lucas—“ prompted Steve again, really pitying the guy now.

“— _Lucas_ ,” Tony enunciated while pulling Steve along, away from Lucas, The Poor Pitiful Sucker, who still looked longingly after Tony’s retreating back.

The moment they slid into a booth nearest to the antique jukebox that was miraculously still working, a curvy dark-haired, doe-eyed waitress and Steve’s acquaintance, Darcy Lewis, sidled up to them, notepad at the ready to take their dinner orders. “Evenin’, boys. What’re we having tonight?”

“Hey Darce,” Steve greeted. “Long time.”

“’Sup Steve? You said it,” she replied, popping the chewing gum in her mouth. “So are you having your usual then?”

“You remember it?” Steve would be awed if she could, considering that it had been a while since he was here last.

“’Course, hon,” Darcy said with a wink, then turning to Tony, continued, “and what’re _you_ having, _stud_?” She popped the last word with as much emphasis as she could with a bit of the signature Darcy sarcasm that Steve had always found quite funny.

“First of all, Darcy—may I call you Darcy?—I need you to answer one important question for me,” Tony asked, eyes flicking over the menu he had plucked off its holder on the table and, at the same time, sneakily stealing glances in Lucas’ general direction. “Is he a regular here?” Tony asked, cocking his head towards Lucas who had already slumped in the booth he was sharing with no one, nose close to his half-eaten burger. If he was slumped any lower, he’d be lying prostrate in the plush bench.

“Yeah he is,” Darcy answered with a bright smile, though Steve was sure her answer didn’t give Tony the same satisfaction. “He’s here—maybe on the average, around twice a week.”

“Thank you, my dear. And I think I’ll have your Burger Bonanza—hold the onion and the barbeque sauce, but be liberal with the mayo and the mustard, side of cheese fries, one large chocolate milkshake, and strawberry-rhubarb pie and coffee as dark as your sexy eyes for dessert,” Tony rattled off with a brilliant smile.

The moment that Darcy was gone, Tony leaned forward to hiss at Steve. “I don’t care if they serve orgasmic burgers here, but this is the last time I’m eating here if Mr. Handsy over there is a fucking regular in this joint.”

“If we’re going to avoid all the places where there’s a possibility of running into people you’ve slept with, we might as well eat in my apartment because there won’t be anywhere else to go in the entire state,” Steve teased lightly, wrestling with the urge to cackle.

“Even your apartment will be off limits after thirty days then if that’s the standard that we’re going for,” Tony bantered back, darting the tip of his tongue to the corner of his lips. Steve’s half-smile froze on his face at that; he had almost forgotten how much of a little shit Tony could be.

“Don’t be cocky, Stark—it’s only _day two_. You’ve got a long, _long_ way to go,” Steve said, recovering his bearings. “Anyway—I don’t get you. You ran into plenty of your past conquests in _Vertice_ last night but you don’t have any qualms about coming back there.” Steve crossed his arms and propped his elbows on the table, hunching his otherwise broad shoulders a bit.

“It’s ‘cause Diana and all the rest last night were class acts,” Tony answered, plucking the saltshaker from the small condiments tray on the corner of the table closest to him and inspecting it. “This one doesn’t seem to get a hint at all. He’s so clingy plus he snores.”

Vaguely remembering the events of last Saturday, before the Celibacy Challenge was issued, Steve asked, “wait—are you telling me that guy over there was the one you were hiding out in my apartment for just last Saturday?” Steve didn’t see the guy that Tony was hiding out in his apartment for very recently—he had never been particularly interested to check out any of the people Tony had been sleeping with as they were coming out of the door in various states of undress and moony-eyes at Steve’s asshole of a neighbor. Hearing them groaning, keening and screaming in ecstasy the night before was more than enough to acquaint them to Steve.

“Oh yeah,” Tony muttered in realization before resentment set in. “’s funny how four nights ago feels like a bloody _lifetime_ now,” he said with a groan. To which the only apt response that Steve could think of was an amused snort.

He sympathized with Tony for all of three seconds before the gleeful gloating took over again. He was determined to count his victories no matter how fleeting or small they may be. He was looking forward to twenty-eight more days of restful and quiet nights before he had to worry about putting out for Tony should the latter succeed. Then again, if the brunette was already feeling the strain two days in, Steve’s prospects were looking bright indeed. Odds were, Tony was not going to finish the challenge and Steve was worrying for nothing over having to sleep with his very _male_ but also very disturbingly attractive neighbor.

“So…tell me, _Steve_. How often do _you_ eat here?” Tony asked, eager to change the subject. “You don’t know _Lucas, the Clingy Koala_ over there from way back, do you?” he continued with a suspicious air.

“No, I’ve never seen Lucas here before, but to be honest, it’s been a while since I was last here. And I’ve never been here all that often since Sharon and I became serious,” Steve disclosed, distractedly picking a chip on the tabletop with a fingernail. “She wasn’t a big fan of this place.” The statement was out of his mouth before Steve could stop himself. Cringing, he knew Tony was going to pick up on it and was probably going to tease him mercilessly about how he sounded so forlorn.

“Jesus, Rogers—you gotta stop doing that to yourself,” Tony chastised him with a vigorous shake of his head.

“Doing what?” Steve asked, wanting to appear like he didn’t know what Tony was talking about, but the truth was he knew well enough what the other man was trying to tell him. He was so hung up on Sharon; it was pathetic. It was just that this was the tune he had been dancing to for two years now; he had gotten so used to it that he was finding it so difficult to have to kick the habit.

“Hey—I’m exerting effort here to not be the one to bring the topic of your ex up. You gotta do your part, buddy,” prompted Tony. “We’re supposed to devote this month to fixing you up so you could get your act together and get back in the dating scene again. Not to lament the ghosts of girlfriends past.” Tony couldn’t get any more unsympathetic while he said that.

“What can I say, Tony? I tend to get hung up on a person,” Steve sighed with an over-the-top clutch to his chest. “That tends to happen when you spend _three years_ of your life with them, but then, what would you know about that when the most significant time you’ve probably ever spent on any one person is while _Lucas, the Clingy Koala_ over there was blowing you?”

“Aaand…we’re back to our regular programming,” announced Tony with a knock against the table’s surface. “I thought you’re treating me to this dinner in acceptance of our truce, but here you’re having a go at me again.”

Shit. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” Steve replied, shaking his head in a properly contrite manner. “It’s just that it’s easier said than done, you know—letting go of someone as if the time you’d spent with them is not supposed to matter. For all we know, you’d be just as hung up as I am if you’re the one in my shoes,” continued Steve, trying to make light of the mood again by steering the conversation away from him.

A wistful smile crossed the brunette’s face momentarily, but it was gone so quickly that Steve thought it might have just been a trick of the light. “ _But_ since I’ve never _been_ in a serious relationship before, that’s really something we wouldn’t have any way of knowing,” interjected Tony. “Some of us are just not built for that kind of thing.” Steve watched his dinner companion shift in his seat to sit sideways on the cushioned bench with his back against the glass. “You can’t stay in this slump forever, though. She’s moved on, so it’s about time that you do, too. What about her?” Tony nodded towards Darcy who stood by the bar, leaning towards the counter to get at something on the other side—her ample bosom and generous hips, perfectly in display from where Steve and Tony sat.

“Darcy? What _about_ her?”

“She’s cute. Why not date her?” Tony asked with a casual eyebrow raise.

“I can’t date her!” Steve answered, slightly horrified.

“And pray tell—why the hell not?”

“Well, for one thing—because we know each other,” Steve responded in a matter-of-fact way like it was one of the cardinal rules of dating and he was surprised that Tony didn’t know about it.

“Uh—excuse me, but where was it ever laid down as law that one cannot date someone they _know_?! So you’d rather go through the getting-to-know motions with a complete stranger, is that it?” Tony leaned sideways, planting his elbow on the tabletop and propping the side of his head on his hand. He had an expression on his face that was a combination of perplexed and disbelieving.

“No. But Darcy and I are already too familiar with each other. She knows my usual order—my tastes—even after all these years that I haven’t gone here. It’d be too strange to date someone like that,” reasoned Steve, stealing a glance at Darcy in case she was already within earshot to bring their food around to catch them talking about her.

Tony shrugged and curled his lip, conceding the point. “Let’s get this clear: what you’re after is someone who’s…in between? Someone you’re not too familiar with but not a complete stranger?”

“Well yeah—because I wouldn’t know how to approach a complete stranger myself in order to date them. All the ones I’ve dated before were either introduced to me by a common friend or introduced to me as a new colleague at work,” Steve explained, casually toying with the napkin holder on the table.

“And what’s your personal rule when it comes to sex?” Tony blurted out next just as Darcy sidled back up to their table with a tray of their partial order.

Darcy snickered at that which made Steve’s face flush a bright puce to the tips of his ears in embarrassment. Tony just stared at him disparagingly.

“We can talk about _sex_ ; we’re grown men here—we’re not five years old. You don’t mind, do you, sweetheart?” Tony cocked his head to look at Darcy with his wide puppy dog warm brown eyes as she served heaping plates of their orders in front of them.

“I’ve heard worse,” assured Darcy with a slight wink before leaving them to start tucking in on dinner.

Tony turned back to Steve, prompting him for an answer. “So?”

“Like I’d told you, I don’t do casual sex. But you know—yeah sure, when the time comes that we both want it, why not?” Steve replied, feeling like he was giving an unsavory answer with the way that Tony’s face was slowly crumbling into an unattractive scowl.

“I asked you about _sex_ , Steve, not _marriage_. ‘When the time comes that we both want it, why not?’—you’re _fucking_ hilarious,” Tony guffawed, scratching the corner of an eye possibly to wipe away tears of his very insulting mirth. “And when is this ‘right time’ exactly? Date number three? Number five? Do you ask them first for their latest HIV test results? How often should they be tested? Would you prefer doing it in your place for more intimacy, their place so you can get to know them better for when you go down on one knee to propose to them after one night of fucking, an impersonal hotel—maybe—so you don’t have to explain to the people who might recognize you that yes, you’re old enough to engage in sex now, or maybe in their parents’ place where they grew up under the watchful eye of their shotgun-toting dad who’d make sure you wear a condom or your hands don’t stray to places where they don’t have any business being?”

“You make me sound like a prude,” Steve observed, furrowing his brows at Tony while sprinkling his plate of warm fries with salt and pepper from the shakers.

“ _You_ make me sound like a _sleaze_ , so I guess now we’re even,” Tony interjected with a careless shrug, energetically digging into his dinner by knifing his burger into more manageable halves.

There was momentary silence as the two attacked their sumptuous dinner. Tony was very vocal in letting Steve know that the burger was indeed orgasmically delicious. Steve was just relieved that the sex talk was halted in favor of enjoying their dinner; he didn’t know how he could appreciate his food if they’d kept on discussing sex as casually as if they were talking about the damn weather.

He realized, though, that compared to Tony, Steve _was_ maybe somewhat of a prude. But he didn’t think anything was particularly distasteful with that, with valuing the sex act because it was the most intimate expression of love and respect between two people.

Steve did indeed miss having sex, but mostly he just missed having sex with someone like Sharon, with whom he’d thought he had a real connection. How wrong he was. But between him and Tony, Steve couldn’t tell who was worse off: Tony, for always getting some, but never with a lasting, soul-deep connection; or him, for having had soul-deep connections that always left him feeling emptier than the last and put him off getting some in fear that he was going to get hurt again.

But maybe it _was_ about time to take a page out of Tony’s book; he was willing to try if the brunette could at least show him how it was done so he didn’t have to look like a complete idiot.

“Hey Tony?” Steve asked, clearing this throat. “Remember my challenge? The one where I’m supposed to go on one date with someone you were going to introduce me to?”

“Yeah…”

“This—this girl you were going to introduce me to… You haven’t slept with her, have you?” Because that would be a real kick in the nuts, if Steve was expected to receive Tony Stark’s cast-offs and have any hope of competing with him. He was never going to measure up to Tony, so they might as well just forget about it.

But Tony’s hesitation to answer was enough. “You’ve slept with her,” Steve said.

“It was only the one time, and it was a long time ago,” Tony quickly appeased, swallowing a gulp of chocolate milkshake hastily. “We wanted different things, and I think she might have found me sleazy, too. So you’ll hit it right off.”

Frustrated, Steve grinned with a slight shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just thinking… If she’s known what being with you is like, how do I even hope to compare?”

“Rogers, I’m hardly a sex god, OK? And unfortunately, some people—and this is something I’ll never understand— _do_ find themselves dissatisfied with mind-blowing sex alone, and this girl…this girl is one of them,” reasoned Tony, gesturing at Steve with a cheese fry off his plate. “She’s not going to compare you to me or to any of her previous lovers—not to your face, at least, because this girl’s got class. And _besides_ , it’s not like you intend to screw her on the first date, because you don’t do casual sex as you’ve repeatedly told me, remember?”

“Right. Right…” Steve hastily filled in, nodding absent-mindedly. Inwardly, however, he still had doubts.

Had Bucky not once told him that he was shit at flirting, that he was too stiff and serious, too overtly uncomfortable in his body that he had not really grown into after he’d had that sudden growth spurt right about the time that they had enlisted?

He had not dated for two years and was in a serious relationship for three years before that. He was so out of touch with the dating scene, with what women nowadays preferred, and he was never very suave, confident and smooth to begin with, even when he _was_ still dating. He felt like he needed more than pointers and the occasional vote of confidence from Tony if he were to have any chance at appearing even remotely interesting to the people that he was going to be introduced to.

-0-0-0-

Steve couldn’t sleep. His apartment was silent as the grave for the second night running and he was wide-awake, mind filled with misgivings the source of which he couldn’t put a finger on. Part of his thoughts was occupied by his own imminent challenge to go on a date with a girl that Tony’d once slept with. And the other— _bigger_ —part of his thoughts was hijacked _by Tony_ , himself.

This was getting fucking out of hand. Tony had no business swimming in Steve’s thoughts at ungodly hours of the night, but Steve couldn’t stop himself.

It was easy to discount Steve’s earlier ‘attraction’ to Tony as resentment because the latter was confident and self-assured in his skin in a way that Steve was not. And Tony was always getting laid while Steve was having the longest dry spell in the history of sex and intimacy. Plus, lately, Steve _had_ been spending a lot of time with Tony what with the challenge and keeping an eye on the brunette’s virtue. But it was as if the shade of Tony’s irises, his smirk, the way he exasperatedly raised a brow, the way he pursed his lips in thought, the line of his jaw, the tousle unique to his brown-black hair were beginning to sear themselves behind Steve’s eyelids that he could see them so clearly every time he closed his eyes.

This was not good. This was not part of the plan when Steve had devised the Celibacy Challenge to his oversexed neighbor.

A pipe started hissing somewhere in Steve’s apartment walls and the far-off sound of a lightly dripping faucet joined the cacophony of the blonde’s noisy thoughts. Captain, who Steve thought was already asleep on the floor beside the bed, raised his head with a soft whine, and with questioning brown eyes, cocked an ear towards the direction of the hallway. Something else was there—alongside the hissing pipes, dripping faucet and the buzzing of Steve’s thoughts, something barely audible but distinct to someone like Steve who’d had his senses honed in the military base and everywhere else he had served his tours of duty where they were practically expected to sleep with their eyes open for all the constant vigilance they were supposed to observe.

 _There_! There it was again—a moan.

Steve was off the bed and out of his room in the tatty boxer shorts he wore for sleep, viciously knocking on Tony’s apartment door. He knew it! He knew Tony was never going to keep his word that he’d keep it in his pants for a month; he hadn’t even made it a week!

“Hold your fucking horses, _Jesus_!” Tony complained loudly from within his apartment. And before Steve was prepared for it, the brunette was opening his door wrapped in nothing but a small towel and dripping wet because of an interrupted late-night shower. Steve’s watched as Tony’s face went from irritated to surprised to horrified in a matter of seconds, realizing the import of why Steve was banging on his door at goodness-knew-what time in his sleep things and sporting a most unbecoming bedhead.

“No, you didn’t!” Tony said, aghast.

“I told you these walls are _really_ thin and I have really good hearing, Stark,” Steve practically groaned.

“It’s not what you think it is. I don’t have anyone in here. You can come in to see for yourself if you want,” Tony explained, running a self-conscious hand through his wet dark brown hair and hiking up the obscenely small towel he had probably grabbed at the last minute to cover his bits and pieces with. “I was having a really, _really_ cold shower in the bathroom to distract myself with, if you get my drift.”   

Steve, sadly, was only too familiar with Tony’s predicament.

“You wanna come in to make sure that I’m alone in here?” Tony asked, throwing the door open wider in invitation.

The apartment within was dim and, apart from the soft drip-drip from the just-vacated bathroom, silent as the grave. Tony’s cat, Friday, sat on the very heart of the room, her body gracefully taut and her yellow-green eyes near-luminescent in the weak evening light.

“It’s OK. I don’t hear anything out of the ordinary. I believe you, just…” Steve trailed off, feeling awkward all of a sudden. “Try to think calming thoughts and stay away from sexy and sexually-suggestive stuff. Watch cartoons or something instead,” he recommended.

“I _was_ watching reruns of _SpongeBob Squarepants_ before…” Tony didn’t finish his sentence in embarrassment. “You wouldn’t believe how sexually-suggestive that bad boy is, and _kids_ watch that shit?!” The brunette complained, hiking his small towel higher up his hips anew, but not before Steve became privy to the brunette’s happy trail below the navel that made his breath catch in his throat.

“Yeah—OK, ehrm, well—goodnight then,” Steve segued by way of goodbye, stepping away from Tony’s door to return to his own apartment and try to get some sleep.

“Yeah goodnight, Steve,” Tony answered, closing his door.

For his part, Steve tried to think of something else other than the glistening of water droplets on Tony’s lightly muscled torso while he fell asleep.


	6. DAYS 3 - 6

“A very good morning to you, Mr. Stark!”

Brooding. “There’s absolutely nothing good about the morning, Pepper.”

“Crabby, aren’t we and to think, it’s only Day 3.”

“I can’t believe you’re keeping count.”

Cheeky. “I may have also gotten a little wager going.”

“Oh that’s just _tremendous_. Let me guess, everyone in the office is in on it, along with Bruce, Rhodey and Happy. You have the absolute _gall_ calling yourselves my _friends_.”

“My, my—you _are_ extra sullen today! Something tells me that something unfortunate happened last night. Don’t tell me you fell off the wagon already?! Dammit—it’s _Bruce_ who’s put a considerable sum on Day 2!”

“Your _faith_ in my resolve just leaves me with warm, fuzzy feelings in the deepest cockles of my heart.” Sarcastic. “Day 2, really?! He didn’t even think I’d make it a week?!”

“ _Rhodey_ was down for Day 1, but he’s decided to put some money on Day 12 also.”

“!!!”

“Any chance you’re falling off the wagon tomorrow?”

“Let me guess, you have money on _Day 4_?”

“And—you know—on Day 7, too, if you’re feeling magnanimous. I did say I was giving you _a week_. Plus, I have a reliable benchmark. Remember when you said you were going to quit drinking? I think that was two years ago, and you gave up after _four days_ then. So—you know—I have it on good authority that Day 4 is when everything goes to shit for Tony Stark and the things he says he won’t do.”

“I haven’t fallen off the wagon. Not yet. I came close last night, though. For the record, there’s something dodgy about _SpongeBob Squarepants_. When you have kids already, don’t let them watch that extra-absorbent sonofabitch or you’ll regret it.”

“…”

“Oh and talk to the building super and try to squeeze my deposit out of him because that _fucking fucker_ lied to me about the integrity of the building, particularly the _walls_.”

-0-0-0-

“You know, Steve, you should definitely wear more blue. Blue matches your eyes.”

“I don’t see why I need new clothes for _Saturday_ , Tony. I’ve _got_ clothes.”

“Clothes from _three years_ ago. When you last went shopping. _With your ex-girlfriend_ , judging by how dated and conservative they are. Your ex obviously didn’t want other women ogling you so she made sure to buy you the most _hideous_ clothes that VISA and MasterCard could pay for.”

Petulant. “Not _all_ of them are hideous…”

“ _Most_ of them… _all_ of them… Does it really matter? I can guarantee you that you won’t be inspiring much interest from your date if you show up wearing your usual threads. I’m not changing your image, Steve; we’re just… _updating_ it.”

“And your taste is better than Sharon’s, is it?”

“You’re kidding, right? When have you ever seen me wear _plaid_ and _corduroy_? No further questions, Your Honor, I rest my case.”

“…”

“Look, I’m even feeling unusually benevolent today that I’m volunteering to pay for your Saturday ensemble. Just please, retire that awful, _awful_ polo shirt and don’t let me get my hands on that or I’m burning it.”

“Where are we eating after this?”

“I’ve got that covered, too. Just concentrate on getting into that nice button-down.”

“I need a bigger size.”

“No, you don’t need a bigger size. It’s not supposed to be loose, Steve; it’s not a jersey, all right, it’s a _Dolce_ button-down shirt; it’s meant to be a bit tight.”

“It’s not just a _bit_ tight. It _won’t_ button up. I need a bigger size, Tony—see…”

“!!!” Alarmed.

“…”

“ _I’ll_ get a bigger size; just fucking get back in the dressing room and put something on or—or cover yourself up or something— _god_ dammit!”

-0-0-0-

“Goo—“

“I reiterate, Pep. There is _nothing_ good in the morning and all mornings for the next twenty-six _fucking_ days!”

-0-0-0-

“So am I allowed to know her name at least, before Saturday?”

“Margaret Sousa—Maggie. She’s a Senior Analyst for a computer software firm. She moonlights as a children’s book editor because she has a passion for reading books and writing.”

“How did you two meet?”

“In a bookstore. She was there in support of the book signing of a children’s book writer she’s worked with, and we just got into talking about contemporary literature and _then_ computer coding, which I was quite surprised that she also knew a lot about, considering that it was _literature_ we first talked about. We had coffee, which turned into dinner—because she was a really good conversationalist. And after dinner, we just…”

“You hooked up, and you… you know… _Just like that_?”

“Say it, Rogers. We _fucked_.”

“You had sex on the _same day_ you’d met in a bookstore and had coffee. How is she a classy lady if that was simply what it took to get her to bed?”

“That’s _probably_ why it was only a one-off. She was pissed at first, you know…after. But she eventually forgave me and understood that that’s simply who I am. And since she is what she is, there was just no way we would have worked.”

“And you think she and I will _work_ , do you?”

“Well—you’re all about wooing and a long courtship and no sex until you’ve gone out together in the double digits, so…I really have a good feeling about you and her.”

“But you know, considering that you’ll be the one introducing us, what if she expects that I’ll try to get her in the sack on the first date?”

“Are you in doubt that our being associated is going to prejudice her against you?”

“As I see it, it can go one of two ways: either she will be wary of me or she will expect me to—like—be a _stud_ or something.”

“OK—Steve? Has anyone ever told you that you might be _overthinking_ this? This is just _dating_. This isn’t _Mensa_. You don’t need to give up all your worldly possessions or sign over your first-born if you don’t do well.”

“I’m a bit nervous, OK? So sue me; I haven’t done this in a while.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“I’m not even gonna grace that with an answer.”

-0-0-0-

“I can’t believe that after slaving away for you, you let Day 4 come and go without giving your friend, your most trusted confidante, your personal slave a hand?!”

“Jeez, Pepper—whatever the fuck happened to ‘Good Morning’?”

“Well—there’s always _Day 7_. Don’t let me down, Tony. I’ve got a considerable sum wagered on Day 7… _Day 7_ —don’t forget. I sacrificed a highly-coveted pair of Manolo Blahniks for this bet.”

“I am _not_ losing this challenge, Pep.” Determined. “You should’ve just bought the Blahniks.”

-0-0-0-

“Where exactly are we going tomorrow? Why did you have to invite Bucky and Sam and their girlfriends? What—you want them to be able to witness and possibly document my going down in a blaze of glory?”

“Have a little faith in yourself, Steve. Remember that in dating—and in life— _confidence is key_. You will know soon enough where we’re going. I don’t want to give you any opportunity to back out on me. And FYI, Bucky and Sam are coming because they were present when the challenge was issued and they are equally invested in having it fulfilled. And their girlfriends are coming because this is the first time those friends of yours are spending their Saturday night outside of _Steve’s House of Vile Video Games_ and with their significant others; I don’t want to deny them the chance for some quality bonding time.”

“But just so we’re clear, the challenge was only this _one time_ …”

“You can hold _me_ to that. But I doubt your friends are going to let you stop at just one date. They want you back in the dating scene, remember? I don’t think one date’s gonna cut it, pal. And what’re you going to tell Maggie if she’s interested in seconds—‘Sorry, but the challenge was only for this one date’?”

“That’s presupposing that she’s even gonna like me—“

“—what did I tell you about overthinking things, man?”

“Not to do it?” Resigned.

“Then _don’t_. Confidence is key… If you keep doubting that she’ll like you, you’d be inviting the vibes and she’d really end up not liking you. And we don’t want that. I did buy you a sixteen hundred-dollar shirt to be able to make a monster of a first impression, and you damn well will, or so help me—“

“ _What_?!” Dumbfounded. “ _Sixteen hundred dollars_?!”

-0-0-0-

The sixth day of Tony’s Celibacy Challenge dawned bright and early, much to the brunette’s chagrin. He didn’t know if it was some sort of withdrawal symptom but he hasn’t been sleeping well for five nights now. He wanted to attribute it to a drastic change in his quote- _habits_ -unquote, but Tony knew that he was in for a penny, in for a pound. He was going to see this challenge through to the very end even if it meant not getting a wink of sleep for the next twenty-four days.

Not only was he interested in collecting the incentive, he, more than anything, wanted to show the non-believers that sex didn’t make Tony Stark’s world go round, that he was not a slave to his libido, that he was a man of his word. There were far more important things than doing the dirty. Like helping a friend get his dating legs back…

While it could be argued that altruism was about the farthest thing from Tony’s mind when it came to why he was really doing whatever the fuck he was doing for Steve, he thought that—hey—no one needed to know his real motivation. Plus, he wasn’t getting any and he hasn’t been sleeping properly, so he couldn’t very well be faulted for trying to get his kicks somewhere else.

Tony spent the morning doing previously-neglected work for various products being developed by his fast-becoming-lucrative tech company, having staring contests with Friday and drinking his weight in black coffee. It dawned on him, only much later, how different this Saturday morning was compared to the other Saturday mornings since he’d moved into the building. Today was the first time since he’d moved in that he had not knocked on Steve’s apartment door and sought asylum from an awkward morning-after.

It felt somewhat surreal.

At about an hour before noon, he began exchanging texts with Maggie about her date with Steve later. Tony didn’t want to oversell Steve lest Maggie ended up expecting something that Steve wouldn’t be able to deliver. But Tony actually wanted Maggie to like Steve and Steve to like Maggie back; and he couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why he was so invested in this.

He liked Steve well enough, or as well as one could like a person who had forcefully denied them something they loved most dearly—no, but Steve was actually _likeable_. Tony could sense there was nothing particularly malicious about Steve daring him to abstain from sex but that the guy only wanted a good night’s sleep without having to be reminded night after night of what it was he’d been missing out on after his bitch of a girlfriend had cheated on him.

Also, Steve was so… _innocent_ and there was just something about him that Tony wanted to protect, to coax little by little like a tinder catching fire, to guide towards the realization of the potential studmuffin in him.

And Tony was going to get a piece of _that_ Steve-studmuffin, so he might as well aim to make a damn specimen of a man for a memorable sampling!

He was in one of his zones when he was jolted out of his focus by a series of loud knocks on his door. It was Steve.

“Oh hey,” Tony greeted, raking a grease-blackened hand through his hair, making it stand on end. He turned back to where he was working, leaving the door open as wordless invitation for Steve to come in.

“Hey, I was just wondering what you’re up to. It was a bit weird not to wake up to a madman seeking asylum in my apartment first thing in the morning and stealing coffee,” Steve joked, pursing his lips in amusement.

“I’m actually being a productive member of society today and getting some work done,” Tony said proudly, gesturing towards the veritable array of spare parts and the machine right smack in the middle of the room, the bowels of which were splayed all over the room as Tony was trying to upgrade it by doing away with bulky and redundant parts. “Ready for your hot date tonight?”

“That’s actually the reason why I gave you a knock—“

“You’re not chickening out on me, are you? Because I already talked with Maggie and she’s looking forward to meeting you,” Tony warned, getting a bit alarmed and dismayed.

“No. no—I’m not chickening out. It’s just that you might want to get ready, yourself, because it’s 6 in the evening,” Steve informed, scratching at the back of his neck.

“What?! It is?!” Tony was surprised. He walked to a cluttered table to retrieve his wristwatch he had discarded earlier and found out that, sure enough, it was already past 6 in the evening. And they were supposed to be at the club by 7:30, and he hasn’t gotten ready yet, and he always took forever to get ready.

There were only two things in the world capable of distracting Tony Stark enough for him to completely lose track of time: tinkering and fucking.

“Well—what are you still doing hanging around here then? Get your butt back in your apartment and get dressed. We need to be out of here in thirty or we might get caught in traffic,” Tony directed, hustling Steve out of his place so both of them could start getting ready.

Tony didn’t really need to primp because it wasn’t as if his night was going to end in a bang tonight with the challenge firmly in place to cockblock him. But again, since he wasn’t getting his itch scratched, he had to get his kicks somewhere else. So why not dress up and look as gorgeous as he always did and maybe no one was going to notice his sexual repression?

He took pains scrubbing the day’s grease from his body, using his favorite L’Occitane soap and shampoo that always left a lavender-y and woody scent on his body, trimming his Van Dyke impeccably, tousling his hair using his favorite—and quite expensive—hair wax, spraying one of his favorite colognes that had always gotten him the most compliments and the best responses from his bed partners. He would have wanted more time to figure out what he was going to wear; but as they were already pressed for time, he had to settle on stonewashed, tight-fitting denims that he knew hugged his hips, pert behind and thighs so well it was near-criminal, an olive green, V-necked long-sleeved shirt that brought out the flecks of gold and green in his honey-brown eyes and complemented his tanned skin to a T, and brown, tanned leather topsiders to complete his ensemble.

Tony met Steve in the hall just as both men were locking their respective apartments up. The brunette couldn’t help but inwardly preen when he saw Steve overtly give what he was wearing an attentive eye. For his part, he silently congratulated himself for insisting on clothing Steve for the night. The charcoal gray trousers and Dolce blue button-down shirt was positively _delicious_ on the blonde that if it were up to Tony, they didn’t need to leave the apartment for the night at all—they could have their own private party in Tony’s apartment where he would take pains divesting Steve of his clothing and making the night worth the blonde’s while. Round after round after round, if Tony could manage it.

Bucky and Sam and their girlfriends were already waiting for the pair of them by Tony’s car, which Tony’s driver, Happy, had made sure to park out front for them. Tony charmed Natasha and Leila easy, and the ladies were thrilled to finally meet Steve’s new neighbor.

“This is all very exciting,” Leila gushed with a wide smile when they were all already snug inside Tony’s car, cruising towards their destination. “So where are we going, Tony?”

“Well—I didn’t want to tell Steve, Bucky and Sam where we’re going in case they bail out at the last minute, but since we’re almost there already… We’re going to _Marvel_ ,” Tony revealed, taking a right turn to a busier thoroughfare.

“But that’s a really exclusive dance club! The queue to get inside goes around the block on a weeknight. I know several people from work who’d tried queueing _thrice_ now and had never made it in yet,” Natasha reported, uncertainty now in her sharp blue eyes.

“I partly own the club, so I think we have a very good chance of getting in,” Tony mentioned as casually as he could make out. Sometimes, he liked bragging about how loaded he really was, but he wanted to make an exception with his current company. Somehow, he didn’t think the thickness of his wallet mattered all that much to them.

“No shit?! You own _Marvel_?” Sam marveled at that, leaning forward in his seat in amazement.

“ _Partly_ own. There are four of us who own it,” Tony clarified, mainly turning to Steve to explain, only because the latter’s eyes were wide as saucers in disbelief. He didn’t bother telling them that he owned the _majority_ of the interest while his friends, Janet Van Dyne and, soon-to-be-married couple James Rhodes and Carol Danvers owned the rest.

“How does that work? You own shares to the most popular place in the city and Bucky, here, says you run your own tech company but you live in Steve’s _hovel_ of an apartment building? Why is that?” Natasha asked, her immense curiosity showing despite Bucky elbowing her to tamp down on it. Tony liked her already; she didn’t seem the type to mince words or sugarcoat anything.

“I had a bit of an issue with my last apartment building. I have certain eccentricities that weren’t palatable to my former neighbors, so I moved,” Tony explained, catching Steve’s amused snort and eye-roll from out of the corner of his eye at his mention of his ‘eccentricities’. “Anyway, I liked the neighborhood—very laidback and understated—when my agent showed me around, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.”

They pulled up at the club at 7:19 and sauntered in without breaking a step, leaving the long line of impatient people who were dressed to the nines and awaiting their turn to get in the club.

“Good evening, Mr. Stark,” greeted the couple of bouncers standing guard by the entrance. Greetings that Tony answered with a smile of acknowledgment.

“Wow...” Tony caught Steve murmuring with a purse of his lips. What the exclamation of amazement was for—the official greeting or the general feel of the club—Tony didn’t know.

As was customary for a Saturday night, _Marvel_ was packed, almost wall-to-wall, with people. The LED walls shone with a kaleidoscope of ever-changing patterns in perfect sync with the lights, green and purple lasers and occasional silvery mist from the high ceiling. The dance floor was an octagon of light panels flashing lazily where people were already getting their groove on in time with the music moderated by the club DJ whose station, along with all manner of sound mixing and arranging equipment, was on a raised dais against the wall that was farthest from the entrance. The wet bar where a veritable display of all sorts of alcoholic beverages on its shelves ran along the walls northeast from the entryway. And all the booths and tables were all on the platforms of varying elevations running along the perimeter of the entire club with staircases on strategic points around the dancefloor leading to the booths.

Without stopping for anything, Tony led his small party to the VIP deck located on the platform directly across from the club DJ’s station, right on top of the entryway, which Tony always liked to think was one fit for a king viewing his court. They could all mingle later, but Steve needed to be introduced to Maggie first. And Tony had already directed Maggie to head to the VIP deck.

Margaret Sousa looked absolutely ravishing in a red, tulip-skirted, curve-hugging number, with a cow neckline in front but a plunging V at the back that showcased the creamy skin on her back and the groove of her spine. She had, cradled in her fingers, a flute of chardonnay. “Maggie,” Tony greeted with a warm smile and a peck on her cheek. Maggie returned the gesture with a toothy smile.  

Introductions were soon made between their newly-arrived party and Maggie until Tony came to introducing Steve. Steve smiled abashedly and formally offered a hand for Maggie to shake with an unembellished, “it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Sousa.”

“Please. Maggie is fine. May I call you Steve?”

“Yes, please.”

Tony wanted to crow in delight. So this was what playing matchmaker felt like! It _was_ unusually satisfying. “Now that I’ve already introduced you two, my work here is done. All of you, guys, can order _anything_ from the kitchen or the bar—sky’s the limit. I’ve got it covered,” Tony told his guests as he moved to leave the VIP deck to make a circuit of the club and torture himself with the prospective lays he was missing out on. But not before he saw Steve’s expression which was an amusing combination of mortification and suspicion. “I’ll just go look for my friends who’re running this club like a tight ship.” The unspoken _‘I’m not gonna find myself a quick fuck in the bathroom no matter how much I want to’_ was in that statement somewhere to assure the blonde.

When Maggie’s face was turned away from Tony, the latter made a gesture towards Steve that he should ask his date to dance before he put on a sickly sweet smile on his face to go look for Jan and Carol.


	7. DAYS 6 - 12

Steve wasn’t normally a cynic. Plus, he was sufficiently desperate to move on from being hung up on Sharon that he was willing to try _anything_ at this point just to accomplish that.

But he knew the moment he had laid eyes on Maggie Sousa standing beside Tony Stark that the road to forgetting Sharon was not going to be as easy as he had initially hoped. And as the night progressed and Steve realized that he had been spending it, for the most part, tracking Tony’s whereabouts all over the club rather than paying attention to his date, he definitely knew he had a problem.

He was mostly convinced that he was doing that because he thought Tony was going to use Steve’s present distraction and the fact that they were in a _dance club_ that he partly owned in the midst of numerous potential booty calls to renege on their deal in the worst way and Steve would be none the wiser.

So what did Steve do exactly?

“Did you hear what I just said, Steve?” Maggie asked, intruding into his close surveillance of Tony from the VIP deck that would have shamed a police operative. Steve snapped out of his intense focus to stare dumbly at Maggie. He had not heard a peep of what she’d just said. But he doubted if she would appreciate him being upfront about it.

“I’m—umm—sorry but I didn’t. What were you saying? I’m sorry,” Steve apologized profusely, going for sheepish and scratching at his temple.

Apparently, they were talking about how Maggie helped code the computer program that Steve was using at work. Maggie was telling him about the more intimate details during the program’s development, and, before his focus wandered, was asking him if he found the program user-friendly. She was conducting a survey for customer satisfaction!

How did they start off so promisingly only to end up like this? And it wasn’t even midnight yet!

They _did_ dance—once. But Steve was so uncomfortable that Maggie didn’t ask him again if he wanted to return to the dancefloor. They just contented themselves with talking in the VIP deck where they could at least hear themselves. While Steve tracked Tony’s repeated circuit of his club, mingling with the patrons, flirting with the ones brave enough to accost him and drinking his weight in martinis and daiquiris.

“Are you interested in Tony?” Maggie asked with a casual roll of her eyes when Steve fell distracted again.

“What?” Steve thought he must have misheard her in the din of the club music.

“I said are you interested in Tony,” Maggie repeated, making sure to holler louder than the pounding music. “Because you haven’t stopped looking at him since he introduced us. I’d usually be offended, since you’re supposed to be on a date with me but I kinda find it cute,” Maggie said, her dark eyes twinkling.

“I’m not interested in Tony—wait…what do you mean? What do you find _cute_?”

“Oh you know—I’m assuming that you’re pining for Tony, but don’t want to say anything because you don’t want to look like a lovesick idiot, so you ask him to hook you up with someone as a smokescreen for how you really feel,” Maggie exclaimed, smugly.

“ _What?! No!_ ” Steve denied with abject horror. He couldn’t possibly be exuding the air of _pining for Tony_! It was ridiculous! “I’m _not_ even _gay_ ,” he emphasized to Maggie.

“Oh neither is Tony, trust me,” Maggie ensured with a suggestive bite of her lower lip, like she knew something that Steve didn’t. And technically, she did. She’d slept with Tony after all. “No gay guy could be as good a lover of women as Tony is, but are we really going to be so narrow-minded as to put _labels_? Straight, gay, bisexual, transsexual, pansexual—does it really matter? Isn’t everything just a matter of what feels _good_ and what feels _right_?”

“I’m not interested in Tony,” Steve repeated with more conviction that time. Like he, too, was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Maggie.

“OK—whatever you say.” Maggie, thankfully, let it go. She steered the conversation to how Steve was enjoying the ambience of _Marvel_.

How did they start off so promisingly only to end up like this?

This was all _Tony Stark_ ’s fault. And Steve seethed inwardly as his eyes drew back to where the brunette was in the heart of the dancefloor, his arms loosely wrapped around a petite girl with a chic pixie-cut hairstyle. The ever-changing lights of the club illuminated the man’s striking features, most notable and eye-catching of which was _that smile_ of his.

Steve was still silently fuming by the time Tony, carting along the pixie-hairstyled girl, went back to the VIP deck. By the looks of him, he was pleasantly buzzed. Which was more than what Steve could say for himself. He was so preoccupied with following Tony’s progress around the club with his eyes, he had been neglecting his date, foregoing the initial plan of getting smashed to try to forget his cheating ex.

All because of Tony fucking Stark!

He made sure to wear his thunderous expression for the rest of the night, too, in case Tony detected it and, just maybe, feel a little bit disturbed by it. Steve felt a bit guilty, though, at seeming a right asshole when Tony introduced the pixie-haired girl as his friend Janet Van Dyne, part owner of _Marvel_. And Jan happened to be a bubbly woman, and now she probably thought Steve was a jackass.

“What’s the matter with you, brah?” It was _Sam_ who ended up noticing Steve’s bad mood.

“Nothing,” Steve answered, sourly, looking on as Maggie conversed animatedly with Jan and, for all intents and purposes, ignored him. He couldn’t blame her, really. The way their night was spiraling into catastrophe was Steve’s fault. Or _Tony_ ’s fault, if they were being technical about it.

“You don’t like your drink? ‘Cause I’m getting another one and I can grab you a new one,” Sam volunteered. And Steve just shrugged; it wasn’t the drink. He just suddenly didn’t feel like getting plastered.

Maggie’s presumption that Steve was interested in Tony came back to the forefront of Steve’s thoughts again, unbidden. He couldn’t understand how Maggie could think that because his interest in Tony was solely to keep the latter from defaulting on their deal.

But a voice started going off in his head: wouldn’t Tony defaulting on the deal actually work in Steve’s favor? Steve wouldn’t have to sleep with him anymore. So, he really shouldn’t give a rat’s ass if Tony was preserving his virtue or not…

No, but what Steve was trying to guard against was the possibility that Tony was going to renege on their deal without Steve knowing about it and _still_ collecting on his incentive at the end of the month to Steve’s utter disadvantage. So, he really should keep an eye on Tony and make sure he was keeping his end of the bargain…

Shaking his head, Steve felt his expression cloud over even more. He couldn’t believe he was _debating_ with himself like a certified _lunatic_! One thing was for sure: a lot could happen in twenty-four days, and he shouldn’t be obsessing over Tony fucking Stark at the expense of trampling on his chances to move on from Sharon because his sex addict of a neighbor wasn’t worth it—he just wasn’t!

So for the remainder of the night, he made the effort to be extra attentive to Maggie by engaging her in conversation, asking her for another dance and making sure her drink was always topped off. He made sure, also, to ignore Tony, not stare at him anymore—well, not as obviously or as intensely as before, and not give a flying fuck if the brunette was jacking off in the middle of the dancefloor or something.

“So… I had a great time, Steve. It was nice to have met you,” Maggie said before their group all parted ways at almost two in the morning. They were lounging about by the curb, waiting for Maggie’s and Tony’s car from the valet.

“Same here. Are you sure you can drive? I didn’t have that much to drink; I can drive you to your place and then commute back to mine, no problem,” Steve offered. He didn’t mean anything by it; he wasn’t inviting himself back to Maggie’s place or anything, but he was genuinely concerned if she was in any state to drive.

“Hey if Tony can still drive, so can I. Don’t worry about me, Steve; I’m a big girl,” Maggie joked with a good-natured wink before giving Tony a lazy peck on the cheek. “Thanks for the invite and the referral, Tony. Steve’s good people,” Maggie said just as her black Lexus pulled up on the curb before their group. “I’ll text you, Steve. Thanks again for the evening.”

“Well, you did give it your best shot, old chap,” Tony drawled with a casual rake of his fingers through his tousled hair. “She’s really not the fuck-on-the-first-date kind of gal,” continued Tony, giving a lazy wave towards Maggie’s car as it sped away.

“I _wasn’t_ trying to get her in the sack, you know,” Steve said, defensively. His face was set in stone again now that Maggie was gone, and he could openly exhibit his displeasure once again.

“Sure you weren’t, sure you weren’t,” cried Tony, raising both hands in surrender.

“I don’t think you should drive,” Steve observed. Tony was not swaying on the balls of his feet or slurring his words like the very drunk, but Steve knew the brunette was buzzed. He wasn’t watching Tony like a hawk for nothing.

“You’re not driving my car, stud,” Tony answered, shaking his head and smirking, as his sleek silver Audi sports car pulled up on the curb. And Tony slid into the driver’s seat without a smidge of hesitation.

There was comfortable silence in the car as they sped away from _Marvel_. The occupants in the backseat were all the right amount of smashed that they preferred to cuddle with their significant others rather than be boisterous.

“ _I_ think that went well; don’t you, Stevie?” Bucky finally piped up from the backseat. “You’re really on your way to being back on your dating feet. A couple more dates should do the trick—get your confidence going.”

“We should do this again soon,” Sam contributed, slurring his words ever so slightly. “Like _next Saturday_!”

“You know, there’s this girl at work that I’ve been meaning to introduce to Steve for the longest time now—“ Natasha began more to Bucky than to the rest of the occupants of the car.

“—nope—no! Enough with the blind dates,” Steve protested, craning his neck to look crossly at his friends stuffed in the backseat of Stark’s luxurious vehicle.

“Why not? I thought you and Maggie got on like a house on fire,” Tony countered. He didn’t look at Steve as he said it because his attention was on the road before him. “I mean, you don’t have to be disheartened by the fact that she declined your offer to drive her home after your first date, Steve. I told you she’s just not built that way,” reasoned Tony, gesticulating with one hand but keeping the other on the wheel.

“And it’s not like Maggie is the only available and unattached girl within a ten-mile radius or something,” Natasha followed-up, to which Leila voiced her agreement. “Come on, just let us hook you up with one more girl….next week… We can go on a group date again,” Natasha coaxed, uncharacteristically talkative, which Steve chalked up to her blood alcohol content. “Even Tony will go with us so you can still keep an eye on him. Right Tony?”

Tony stared grumpily at Bucky, momentarily taking his eyes off the road. “You told her?!”

Steve griped, “hey! Eyes on the road, Stark!”

While Bucky replied with a careless shrug, “I don’t keep secrets from my girl. Besides, what’s the harm in her and Leila knowing about your challenge?”

“Right, right. Let’s just tell everyone and their girlfriends about that, shall we?” The brunette grumbled, awarding the nearly empty street they were traversing his full attention again.

“So what did you _really_ think about Maggie?” Tony wheedled as soon as it was just the two of them in the car, having dropped off Sam, Leila, Natasha and Bucky in their respective destinations.

Steve’s eyebrows furrowed anew; he was reminded yet again of Maggie’s insinuation about him being interested in Tony. “She’s very pretty, and she seems pretty smart and cool, too,” he answered, hoping against hope that there wasn’t going to be any follow-up to that, but knowing Tony, he was going to keep bringing the subject of Maggie up just to emphasize that he did a good job bringing her and Steve together.

“But you don’t like her. At least, not the way you think you were supposed to like someone who was going to bring you out of your two-year funk,” finished Tony, his tone neutral, and not at all teasing or disbelieving, which disconcerted Steve.

“No, no—I do like her, don’t get me wrong. She’s very likeable,” clarified Steve with a hand gesture. “But, yeah. I don’t think there’s a spark there. I don’t think she even likes me very much.” Steve felt slightly dejected then. Was he ever going to be rid of the memory of Sharon? Or was he destined to find everything bland, colorless and spark-less for the rest of his life?

“That hardly means you’re just going to throw in the towel, you know,” Tony criticized. “Natasha’s right. There are many fish in the sea, so go fish. Humor your friends and go out next Saturday with this girl they’re planning on introducing you to,” he continued, pulling up on curb in front of their apartment and killing the car’s engine.

“If you’re worried about keeping an eye on me, _fine_ —I’ll go to this infernal group date, but I don’t have to go alone. I can’t screw, but I can still date. It won’t be as interesting or exciting but, you know, it’s something to do instead of having to watch all of you getting cozy with your respective dates,” spat Tony, getting out of the car and going around to head to the apartment building’s front door.

“ _Fine_ ,” Steve grumbled back, but inwardly, he was pleased—excited even. Why that was so, he didn’t have an idea. _Or_ maybe he did, but he adamantly refused to come to terms with it.

-0-0-0-

“Hey Steve! It’s Pepper. Thank you for taking my call.”

“Hey Pepper. What can I do you for?”

“So… it’s Day 7…”

“Yep, day 7. Tony seems to be holding up all right.”

“Ugh—that’s news I actually didn’t want to hear.”

“Wait… you actually want Tony to _fail_ at the challenge?”

“Not just fail. Fail _today_. I have considerable money down for today in our office betting pool. I’ve got the proceeds earmarked for a gorgeous pair of Blahniks— _shoes_. Are you saying you don’t think Tony’s going to fall off the wagon today?”

“Well, he hasn’t even left his apartment. He’s just working on some tech stuff. Listen… you know him best—do _you_ think he’ll fall off the wagon today?”

“…”

“Pepper—you still there?”

“ _Dammit_! And to think I have such high hopes for those shoes. Oh well, twenty-three days is still a long way to go. I’m not losing hope… I’ll put some money down for another day. Well—thanks anyway, Steve!”

“Sure thing, Pepper!”

“Hey—you’re still going to let me know if he’s starting to climb the walls because of sexual frustration, right? If I’m losing those Blahniks, at least I’d be getting some kind of laugh out of it…”

-0-0-0-

“Hey Steve, I’m just dropping off these surveillance records before I head out to tail that fishy jeweler in the Morton case.”

“Thanks Sam. Hey—make sure to sign your expense reports pending with Accounting. You’re racking up quite the reimbursable, and you’re going to owe me a six-pack of beer for that.” Chortle.

“So… have you thought of going out for another group date this coming Saturday? Nat and Leila seem to be really looking forward to introduce you to someone—a common friend, I think.”

“I’m still thinking about it—“

“Hey, if you’re thinking about keeping an eye on Tony—“

“It’s not that. He already said he’s willing to join us for the group date—“

“Problem solved then! Say… remember that night that you challenged Tony? Didn’t Buck suggest some kind of incentive if he succeeds?”

“Yes?” Fidget.

“Did you, guys, ever agree on what the incentive was going to be? I mean, with an incentive, you probably don’t have to police him so closely.”

Gulp. “Actually… no—not yet. He’s still—uh—thinking about it.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t give him too much time thinking about it. It’s probably gonna be sex-related. That boy has got sex, sex and nothing but sex in the brain.”

Weak chuckle. Gulp.

-0-0-0-

“Do you know why Pepper’s not talking to me?”

“What does that have to do with me, Tony?”

“Because I _know_ , _Steve_ , that she got in touch with you yesterday. What did you talk about exactly?”

“Something about day 7 and a pair of shoes—“

“ _Shit_!”

“Interesting people, your friends and officemates. They have a betting pool going about when they think you’re falling off the wagon on your Celibacy Challenge. Do you know about that?”

“Intimately… What can I say? I inspire such _passion_ in my people that they can’t help but get _involved_.” Dripping sarcasm. “I ought to fire the whole lot of them. But I won’t… Actually, I _can’t_. I won’t make it a day without Pepper. But don’t you dare tell her that!”

-0-0-0-

“Day 9 and I’d swear I can see itsy-bitsy cracks on the surface of his resolve. I know I shouldn’t feel so amused about Tony’s suffering, but really… I haven’t been this _ecstatic_ since I took my nephew and niece to Disneyland and we happened upon _Robert Downey Jr._!”

“It’s surprising that he’s keeping it together so well, though.”

“No, but—really, Steve. I cannot _thank_ you enough for this brilliant idea of yours.”

“OK, Pepper? I don’t mean to downplay my brilliance or anything, thinking this up, but I kinda just wanted to get some sleep…” Sheepish.

“You know what, regardless of your reason, this is a good thing you did here. Kidding aside, I’ve always thought that Tony is on a self-destructive spiral of epic proportions with the sleeping around and the refusal to settle down. Not only does he open himself up to possibly contracting some kinda disease from all that sex, he closes himself off from having any real connection with anyone, and I worry about him, you know…”

“I hear you, and you know—it’s nothing…” Earnest modesty.

“But I kind of can’t help wondering now—why he’s stubbornly keeping to this? It’s just that… I _know_ Tony, OK? He can be infuriatingly stubborn, but to keep away from something he’s really into for _nine days_?! That’s gotta be a record. I wonder what’s in it for him if he does, by some kind of miracle, succeed in this challenge?”

“Oh well… I—you know…” Fidget.

“You didn’t discuss that?”

“No.” Shudder.

-0-0-0-

“It’s already midweek, Steve. The girls need to have confirmation from you that we’re on for Saturday night.”

“Ugh Sam, do I really have to? Am I the only single guy friend you guys have to introduce to this friend of theirs?”

“Come on, man. Just humor the girls. It’s not as if they’d already be planning the bridal shower after just _one_ date. Besides, you can hardly be said to be back on your dating feet after just the one date with Tony’s friend.”

Resigned. “All right, all right! But just so we’re clear. I’m yielding to this _under protest_. After this, I won’t go to any more blind dates where I’m going to be put on the spot. What little confidence I have can only take so much beating, you know.”

“The problem with you is that you go in there thinking the worst. You can stop doing that, and maybe the date won’t end as a qualified disaster. ‘m just sayin’, man.”

-0-0-0-

“Sam texted me saying that it’s on for Saturday night, is that right?”

“I said I was going to go _under protest_ , and I also said this was going to be the last blind date I’m going to go on.”

“Oh OK. I guess I need to find a date then if we’re on.”

Silence.

“So who’re _you_ taking? Have I met them before? Like maybe, one of the usual crowd we happen upon in _Vertice_?”

“Nah, too predictable. Jesus, can you believe it’s been _ten days_ since I met anyone new? For the record, my social life is seriously taking a hit with this Celibacy Challenge thing…”

“Just because you can’t have sex doesn’t mean you can’t meet anyone new, Tony.” Eyeroll.

“Well, what’s the use of meeting anyone new if you can’t take them home and screw their brains out?”

-0-0-0-

“I have to go to this investors’ thing tomorrow night.”

“Investors’ _thing_?”

“Just—oh—dinner and maybe an intimate opera or a wine-tasting… The company’s investors are gonna be there, and Pepper impressed upon me that it’s imperative that I go.”

“And you’re telling me about it because I can’t tag along?”

“No, I’m telling you because you _have_ to tag along. I hate these investors’ gatherings; they’re fucking boring and the investors are just people who have more money than they know what to do with and a very high opinion of themselves. Plus, there are always people there who throw themselves at me and I’m just the right amount of _undersexed_ right now that I just might indulge them, so I need you there to make sure that they keep their distance.”

“ _Undersexed_ , really Tony? It’s only been _eleven_ days…”

“Eleven of the longest fucking days of my life. And I’m starting to get the weirdest withdrawal symptoms, too—no wait, hear me out, Steve… I keep seeing _cats_ —“

“—Tony, you have a cat at home or have you forgotten?—“

“No, no! It’s not just Friday. Although she _is_ extra clingy to me lately, too. Like… cats, _everywhere_. Stray cats loitering in every fucking alley and street corner, and just this morning, I had a colleague bring her pet cat to work because she said the cat was sick and she had to pass by the vet to have the cat looked over. I mean, can you believe that?”

“And you think you keep seeing cats because—let me guess—“

“ _Because_ I keep thinking about _pussy_! And these fucking cats just—I don’t know—smell it on me or something?!” 

“???”

“I’m telling you, Steve, it’s a real kicker. If I were a lesser man, I’d start fucking panicking already. But as it is, I think I’ve still got this under control. Now, once I start seeing _phalluses_ or, worse, _cats licking phalluses_ , everywhere, then we have a real fucking problem!”

-0-0-0-

“I thought you said _dinner and a wine-tasting_?!” Steve accused, aghast. He gaped at the signage glowing on the façade of the premises where the _Stark Industries_ investors’ thing was going to be held.

“That’s what Pepper said!” Tony exclaimed, denying any knowledge of the real nature of the evening’s gathering. In all fairness to the engineer, he looked equally appalled and horrified.

“This is a _strip club_ , Tony!” Steve nearly yelled with a perceptible shudder. Just in case his companion missed the god-awful flashing sign or the LED screens stylishly showcasing scantily-clad males and females of varying persuasion.

“Yeah, I’ve _noticed_ ,” Tony barked. “If you’re scandalized, how’d you think _I_ feel right now?! I’m supposed to be avoiding anything remotely sexually-suggestive and now I’m supposed to spend an entire evening in a _fucking_ strip club—I’m in _hell_ … I’ve died and now, I’ve gone to hell. I’m being punished for my sins,” groaned Tony, practically erasing his face with a palm. “I have a right mind to call Pepper right now and scream myself hoarse about this and just go home.”

Like clockwork, Tony’s phone started ringing shrilly. Swiping at the screen, Tony gravely answered it, “you better have a good explanation ready for me, Pep, or I swear to God, I’m throwing the nastiest bitch-fit you have _ever_ seen.”

Steve couldn’t hear Pepper’s explanation so he couldn’t tell how good it was, but Steve could hear Tony’s responses all right, and the engineer was undeniably pissed off. There was mention of some kind of mix-up about reserving a nice, _decent_ restaurant for dinner and then a special request from one of the more senior and substantial investors named Fury or something. And all the while Tony was desperately trying to tell Pepper to do something so he didn’t have to make an appearance, but in the end, no amount of begging off from the company President and CEO made the assistant buckle from her iron-clad insistence that Tony needed to attend.

With quiet resignation on Tony’s part and almost-sympathy for Tony on Steve’s part, the two made their way into the establishment.    

To be fair, the place looked like a lot of thought went into presenting it as tastefully and artistically as possible given the nature of its business. It was an establishment that was supposed to cater to a moneyed clientele with its polished surfaces, carpeted floors and cherry wood-and-velvet wall panels. The reception area seemed like it belonged to an intimate theater for a stage play and was manned by an efficient-looking and impeccably dressed lady, who greeted them with a gracious smile and wordless instruction to an escort—another appealing lady—to lead them to where the _Stark Industries_ gathering was.

For a strip club, Steve thought it was awfully elegant.

“This will be a real test to your willpower, Tony, but I have faith that you can do this,” Steve encouraged, halting Tony just as they were shown before a door where their party was supposed to be found.

Tony visibly gulped. “You’ll keep an eye on me, right?”

“Sure,” Steve said with a nod. He wrestled to submission the thought of what he had been accused of the last time he had kept an eye on Tony. This was nothing like that. This _wasn’t_ about that.

Steve noticed Tony visibly flinch and clench his hands upon opening the wide double doors. The ambience of the area was intimate and sophisticated; the floor was crawling with investors intent on spending their money to buy the company of beautiful escorts for the night; there was a small stage, currently empty, where, presumably, dancers would be getting their kits off as the night progressed. They were barely inside the hall when a beautiful girl in a tight-fitting gown that left nothing to the imagination hooked arms with both of them and, with a sultry smile, said, “Welcome Mr. Stark and Mr. Rogers, we were previously told you were coming. Please—allow me to lead you to the best table in the hall.”

Before they got to the table, Tony weaved through the throng of his company’s investors, said his piece, made a jest or two, complimented hairstyles and threads and was as sociable as he could be given his immense discomfort that only Steve was privy to. There were little indications of it, though: barely audible sighs and whimpers, smoldering and lingering looks towards the more appealing women _and men_ loitering about, clenched hands that were in and out of his front trousers’ pockets, subtle lower lip bites—those kinds of signs…

On their table sat two gorgeous ladies and four goblets of what Steve could only presume were high-end white wine.

“Are your companions for the night to your liking? Because we have quite the selection should your tastes be of the less conventional variety tonight…”

Steve just shrugged that the girl he was being motioned towards was acceptable, not trusting his voice while Tony clenched his jaw and nodded curtly that he was good with the companion given to him, too.

“The show will be starting in an hour. Until then, feel free to mingle with your investors and avail of our sumptuous buffet, prepared especially for your party.” After which, the girl sashayed away as gracefully as she had come.

Tony conversed casually with his companion, putting his mouth close to the shell of her ear while Steve exchanged awkward smiles with his own girl. Then, he noticed the engineer making off to leave their table.

“Where are you—“ Steve began.

“I’ll be right back. I’ll just make a quick circuit of the floor and do what I came here to do. Just… keep my date entertained, will you?” Tony tapped at his temple before squaring his shoulders and putting on a dazzling smile to present to his company’s financiers, successfully hiding any discomfiture Steve knew he was nursing.


	8. DAYS 12 - 13

There were no two ways about it but that Tony was in _hell_. He was surrounded by immensely attractive, sexually nubile, well-dressed men and women of varying shapes, sizes and color, and he couldn’t have _any_ of them. Sure, he could look; he could touch, even. But he couldn’t have his wicked way with them. Unless he wanted a rock-hard erection for the rest of the night that had no way of culminating in anything else but an ice-cold shower back in his apartment, there was no use _starting_ anything with any of them. That way lay damnation.

So he stayed uncharacteristically professional as he made a circuit of the hall, talking to his company’s investors about recent projects, redesigns, re-configurations, glitches—both corporate and technical—and what his people, under his leadership, were doing to resolve them. He liked to think he was still as charming as Tony Stark could be, only that he was less suggestive and less flirty given the smoldering stares he was getting from his investors’ companions for the night.

And whenever Tony felt his resolve buckling, he would crane his neck or angle his head to be able to meet Steve’s eyes no matter how far away from him the blonde was.

Tony must say, though, that looking to Steve for guidance or affirmation or whatnot was both grounding and infuriating: grounding, because seeing Steve reminded him of what was at stake; and infuriating, because seeing _Steve_ —in all his mouthwateringly delectable and innocently chaste glory—reminded him of what _was_ at stake. He found himself spelling ‘delayed gratification’ both normally and in reverse, thinking of everything he planned to do to Steve once this thirty days of infernal hell were up.

It was on one of these instances of meeting Steve’s eyes from across the hall and holding that unwavering gaze that Tony discovered that he was hard, and achingly so. It was as if all his blood had decided to rush south of his waist, making him dizzy with the most profound head rush he had ever experienced. He dreaded to look down to see just how obvious it might be, knowing that it was only a matter of time before someone noticed the tenting of his expensive slacks.

That put an abrupt halt to the social niceties faster than any of his old incredibly offensive antics ever did, and Tony slunk back to his table. Which he was, incidentally and ironically, sharing with Steve and their gorgeous companions for the evening—none of whom were looking mildly appealing to Tony right now.

“I think the show’s about to start,” Steve told him as soon as he plopped down on the plush settee at their table.

“ _Yippee_ … you know, for a while there, I was almost _bored_.” Tony’s retort dripped with sarcasm. He folded his legs and shifted in his seat to try to ease the pressure on his raging hard-on that absolutely refused to flag.

“Hang in there,” said Steve with sympathetic blue eyes, unmistakable even in the intermittently flashing lights in the hall.

Tony tried distracting himself by being the perfect gentleman to his companion, pouring her drinks, massaging her palm and knuckles, motioning for a waiter to bring her more finger food from the buffet, being attentive to her, and taking the time to know that her name was Christine; she was taking up Journalism in the nearby community college and used the money she would earn from occasional stints at the club for her tuition and to send to her mother in Rose Hill, Tennessee. He resolved to leave her a hefty tip for the night as recompense for distracting Tony from the hard and pressing problem in his pants.

The show on stage started soon enough, and Tony hunched in on himself to will his erection away. This was bad; this was really, _really_ bad. The worst part would have to be the surreptitious and worried glances he kept getting from Steve, so much so that Steve wasn’t paying as much attention to his own companion.

“Are you all right, Tony?” Steve asked, leaning toward him just as the lights dimmed again to signal the start of another performance.

“Peachy,” Tony mumbled, crossing and uncrossing his legs under the table still with the goal of killing his fast becoming painful anatomical problem.

If he came without touching himself, would that count as a violation of the challenge? God, he hoped not because he would really be all levels of pissed if he’d had to lose the reward of sex with Steve just because he had come untouched in his Escada trousers. And to think he wasn’t even looking at anyone naked! He was just looking into Steve’s intensely blue eyes from across the hall of a fucking strip club!

Since it wasn’t clear if coming untouched was a breach of the terms of the Celibacy Challenge, there was nothing to it; he was just going to have to will away his erection until, by some fucking miracle, it flagged. Re-crossing his legs again under the table, he planted an elbow on his knee and started chewing on a thumbnail as a last ditch effort to get rid of his hard-on. That, and focusing on the undulating naked bodies of a David-esque male and a voluptuous female on the stage.

Tony Stark never thought he would live to see the day that he was going to resort to distracting himself _out_ of a persistent state of arousal by watching naked, nubile bodies dancing on the stage of a high-end strip club. It was previously unheard of.

He must look like he was on the verge of getting sick or something because Steve leaned even closer to him, unknowingly making Tony more uncomfortable than he already was. “Tony, are you sure you’re OK?”

Steve was about to touch his forearm, concern etched on the blonde’s handsome face, when Tony visibly recoiled away from it, hissing, “don’t touch me!”

He sounded disgusted and angry even to his own ears that he couldn’t blame Steve for looking mildly hurt. There was also surprise in those blue eyes, not expecting the kind of reaction that his concern elicited. But he pulled his hand back and tucked it under the table like he’d been burned.

“I—I’m sorry, Steve. I didn’t mean to sound like a dick.” _That_ just totally slipped out… He almost wanted to laugh that even with a boner strong enough to hammer nails, he still had it in him to let loose bad puns.

Should he tell Steve about his little/not-little problem? Would he even want to? Hell, if he did tell Steve, what would Steve even be able to do about it? It wasn’t like the blonde would throw him a free pass and jerk him off…

Not good! He really shouldn’t be thinking about Steve jerking him off. The show transpiring on stage that was getting everyone else hot and bothered was completely lost to Tony now.

Steve stared at him, quizzical and, at the same time, wary. Tony made a decision then.

“I think I need to go.”

“Go? What do you mean? Go where?”

“Away. Home,” Tony answered, distracted. He’d fucking flag down a newspaper boy on a bicycle to take him to hell, if need be. He just needed to get the hell out of there! “I’m having an _anatomical crisis_ right now.” He opened his eyes wide, looked towards the seat of his pants and pursed his lips, prompting Steve to get it that he was having the most painful uprising of his member right at that moment and that he needed to leave the club, lock himself up in his room, and stuff himself in a dark corner, thinking of the most effective boner-killer, if he didn’t want to fall off the wagon and miss his chance to get into Steve’s pants. “And I really need to leave here. So—are you coming?”

 _Goddammit!_ Not again with the bad, sexually-suggestive puns!

When it finally dawned on Steve what Tony was having difficulty with, the last thing Tony expected Steve to do was blush. Which the idiot totally fucking did!

Tony felt a tightness in and around his navel as a sign that he was closing in on a very unwanted climax, so he did the first countermeasure that came to mind to stave it off: he emptied a tumbler full of ice-cold water on the crotch of his super expensive trousers.

The entire hall fell into a hush. Even the performers on the stage froze in the middle of their dance moves.

“Clumsy me,” Tony announced with a sheepish smile, and the hall slowly started buzzing again. He didn’t really give a shit about his pants, his investors’ reactions or what it must all look like to a casual observer. What mattered was that the water did the trick. Since his dick was now soaking wet with cold water, his hard-on had started to flag.

He dared to look at his neighbor, seated on the same table with him again and found the blonde fighting down a smile. Fuming, Tony rolled his eyes and flipped him the bird.

The brunette doubted if his neighbor would still be amused once he found out _who_ had caused Tony’s arousal in the first place. Or _why_ Tony resorted to such drastic measures to kill his erection short of pulling his fucking dick off.

Tony thought Steve didn’t really need to know anything at this time.

-0-0-0-

“It’s a good thing you just told them to meet us in the Bowl-O-Rama,” Tony told Steve by way of ‘Hello’ when they met each other in the hall while locking their respective apartment doors before leaving for the group excursion scheduled by Steve’s friends for the purpose of introducing him to yet another blind date. “Pepper’s just told me that a _cab_ is waiting downstairs to take us there. My car’s been taken in for a tune-up.”

“Oh. What about your date, though?”

“I texted him to meet us at the venue, too,” Tony absent-mindedly answered as they ambled down the stairs.

“Oh OK. So…where’d you meet _him_ —your date?”

“He’s my employee’s cousin’s friend’s classmate who also happened to do some technical auditing for this product that SI’s been developing. We happened to ride the same elevator going up, Thursday morning, so I asked him if he wanted to go on a date with me and my friends and he said he’d love to,” narrated Tony, almost bored.

“Just like that, huh?”

“Yep,” said Tony, popping the ‘p’. “Just like that. There’s nothing particularly difficult about asking a random person to go out and shoot the breeze. I’ve met my most memorable lays that way, let me tell you.”

Steve hummed, distracted, as they both made their way to the idling cab, waiting by the curb. Tony gestured for Steve to get in first and he slid in after his neighbor. He never did like scrambling deeper into the backseat; it was so unbecoming.

“So…” Tony began, trying to make conversation when the car was already in the thick of the city’s Saturday afternoon traffic. “Did you even ask the girls for the name of the person they were planning to set you up with?”

“No. To tell you the truth, I’m dreading today. After last time, I don’t think I’ll be comfortable with blind dates at all,” Steve practically groaned.

“Oh you can’t expect yourself to be automatically comfortable with someone you’re presumably meeting for the first time,” Tony replied with a dismissive wave. “Don’t go in dreading the worst before you’ve seen what you’re actually in for. This is not rocket science, Steve—it’s _dating_.”

“Funny—that’s the same thing Sam said,” conceded Steve.

Tony would have liked to give Steve more pep talk, but the look on the latter’s face like he was being herded to the chopping block was enough to make Tony rethink his earlier strategy of psyching Steve up. There was no more conversation until they found themselves at the entrance to the Bowl-O-Rama.

The bowling joint was bustling as was usual for a Saturday afternoon. It had the ambience and the vibe of an ‘80s establishment complete with vintage screens projecting bowling scores and _Strike_ and _Spare_ animations that were quite cute in their being outdated. Music by the _Beach Boys_ was trying to compete with the riot of balls hitting lane planks and plowing through pins or falling into the channels. There were low shelves of candy-colored bowling balls along the breadth of the area, separating the bowling lanes from the entrance where the shoe rental counter and the bar were situated. The lanes themselves were brightly lit and metal chairs screwed to the floor peppered the area to cater to both diners and bowlers.

They found Bucky, Sam, Leila, Natasha and Steve’s supposed date, Maria, in the two left-most aisles, having appropriated it for some raucous bowling matches. They were trying to figure out the game console, or lacing on bowling shoes or gauging the weight of the various balls to find out which they were most comfortable with.

“Hey, there you are, you guys! Steve, this is Maria—Maria Hill, Steve Rogers. Oh and this is Steve’s neighbor, Tony,” Leila did the honors of introducing the two parties to the supposed blind date.

Maria graciously shook Steve’s hand with a pretty smile before taking Tony’s. “Wait… Tony… Are you Tony _Stark_?” Maria asked with a raise of a nicely-arched eyebrow in interest.

“Y—eees? That’s me,” Tony admitted with a hesitant smile, looking quickly between Steve and Maria, unsure if admitting who he was was going to earn him a slap to the face or a knee to the crotch. He wracked his brains if Maria seemed familiar to him, like maybe he had slept with her before or something. But he came up blank. So he just kept the smile pasted on his face.

“I did a paper for my Masters about your company and your patents. Oh _wow_! This…this is a real privilege, Mr. Stark,” Maria said with an eager smile and a zealous shake of his hand. “I can’t believe I’m meeting you now,” she gushed coyly.

“Oh but the pleasure is all mine, Maria—can I call you Maria?” Tony asked, gesturing towards Steve once Maria’s attention was temporarily diverted to finding their seats.

“Of course.” Maria said, automatically taking the seat beside Tony, which made Steve naturally elect the empty seat beside hers because she was supposed to be on a date with him.

“If you wrote a paper about my company, how come you never set up a meeting with me? We could’ve really talked about how awesome I— _my business_ —is,” remarked Tony with a nice save when he noticed Steve exaggeratedly rolling his eyes at him.

“I tried to, but it was hell at work during that time. It just so happened that on the only week I was relatively free, you were out of the country on an extended business trip or something,” explained Maria. “I still would’ve wanted an interview set up even after I’ve already submitted my paper just to ask my stupid questions, but I didn’t want to have to waste your time,” Maria continued with a shy, close-mouthed grin.

“I’m sure meeting you would’ve been anything but,” Tony disagreed, smirking. “No biggie—we’re meeting each other now.” Leaning in closer to Maria to unequivocally flirt with her, he was met by a deadpan stare from Steve who was on Maria’s other side as if saying _‘Really? Really?! You’re flirting with_ my _date?!’_ with his blue eyes that had gone stern—well—stern _er_ than usual.

Before Tony could say any more flirtatious sweet nothings to _Steve’s date_ , their group was approached by _Tony’s date_ , Nick Wakefield.

Nick was dressed in denim skinny jeans that emphasized great thigh muscles and a delicious backside, a light gray V-necked shirt that showed off defined biceps and forearms without being overly muscular, and plain sneakers. His blonde hair was swept stylishly off his boy-next-door attractive face, and the Bowl-O-Rama’s tacky lighting actually brought out the luminosity in his sea-green eyes.

The engineer had to admit that his date wasn’t shabby at all; he almost wanted to pat himself in the back for a job well done, choosing his date.

Nick actually kinda, sorta, almost looked like Steve. And Dear God, was Tony actually developing a _type_ because of his fast-becoming-unhealthy fascination for his sexy but horribly introverted next-door neighbor?

The group decided to break into two teams of four members each to play a game. Sam, Leila, Tony and Nick were in one team with Steve, Maria, Natasha and Bucky in the other. They played enthusiastically over nachos, pizza, fries, cheese sticks and milkshakes. Tony was a passable bowler, and apparently, so were Sam and Leila. But as it turned out, Nick was a fucking bowling prodigy, so they were walloping Steve’s team who were composed of only average bowlers.

How did Tony get so damn lucky? He continued to mull over his tremendous good fortune as he gazed dreamily at the curve of Nick’s superb ass while the latter dealt with a bowling frame and hit a strike. But then he remembered he couldn’t tap that ass no matter how much he was getting turned on by watching Nick’s bowling stance. And he re-thought his earlier assessment: he was fucking _cursed_ , not lucky. Because here he was on a date with a sexy guy, who knew how to wear his jeans and was an excellent bowler to boot, and Tony couldn’t have him.

In the course of the afternoon and well into the evening, Tony also realized that Nick wasn’t a bad conversationalist. The engineer was actually having a great time, chatting to both Maria and Nick, beating Steve’s team at bowling and enjoying the company of his new friends. The only dark spot in an otherwise great group excursion was Steve’s awkwardness around Maria, who seemed to enjoy chatting Tony up than paying attention to Steve.

The engineer really felt bad for his neighbor, who seemed ill-at-ease again with this new woman he was set up with. But Tony couldn’t fault Maria because there _were_ times that Tony’d caught Maria eyeing Steve and expecting the latter to be more engaging, but Steve was just too closed-off, preoccupied with second guessing himself and overthinking things, no doubt.

“Well that was fun, don’t you think?” Tony asked, throwing a jovial arm over Steve’s shoulders as they were leaving the Bowl-O-Rama at around past eight in the evening after about back-to-back-to-back games against Steve’s team where they got undeniably _trounced_ by Tony’s team, mostly because of Nick, the Bowling Prodigy. “It’s an _absolute joy_ beating that ass, neighbor,” teased Tony with a quirk of an eyebrow and his lips.

“Too bad this ass is the only thing you’re beating tonight,” Steve teased back with a sweet smile that screened the sarcasm, and then his eyeballs strayed towards the direction of Nick and mockingly pouted his lower lip. Tony opened his mouth in a shocked ‘o’ at Steve’s sass. He didn’t think the goody-goody blonde Adonis had it in him to go toe-to-toe with Tony when it came to being cheeky.

“So I’ll be taking Tony, Steve and Nick then. I’ll drop them off where they need to be,” Maria offered. 

“Yeah, that’s great, Maria. Leila and I are going to her mom’s while Bucky and Nat have another friend’s engagement party to go to,” Sam informed Tony and Steve. “I guess I’ll just see you at work Monday, Steve. See ya, Tony,’ he said by way of goodbye, knocking fists with the two men.

“Yeah, see you Monday. You guys might want to hurry though,” Steve said, briefly looking up at the sky. “Looks like rain.”

Leila, Bucky and Natasha also said their goodbyes with lots of cheek-kissing from the girls. And the group parted ways: Sam and Leila towards the nearest subway station, Buck and Nat to the nearest taxi bay and Maria, Tony, Steve and Nick towards the Bowl-O-Rama parking lot to retrieve Maria’s car.

“I’m calling shotgun,” Tony declared just as they reached Maria’s parked Honda and quickly slid into the front passenger seat before anyone else could even begin to protest. Goodness knew he wasn’t going to endure sitting in the backseat so close to Nick and have to keep his hands to himself.

“You’re an ass, you know that?” Steve whispered to him by the car door post just as Tony was pulling his seat belt on. Tony replied by turning his head slightly towards Steve and blowing a very mature raspberry.

“So who am I dropping off first?” Maria casually asked just as they were pulling out of the lot.

Tony silently hoped and prayed that Nick wasn’t expecting him to extend some sort of invitation for a night cap because attractive, though, as the idea may be, Tony couldn’t. Not for another seventeen days…

It was Steve who answered. “Tony and I are on Walker. Half a block from the Costco. What about you Nick?”

“I’m first I guess. I’m just three blocks off this main street—in Regent,” Nick answered with a slight sigh that Tony couldn’t help but feel guilty about. He wanted to _apologize_ to Nick that Tony couldn’t take him home and fuck him senseless and ask if they could do this another time, say, _eighteen_ days from now. But he kept his trap shut.

Whoever said Tony Stark had no self-control was fucking high on whatever the fuck people who liked getting high got high on.

When Maria pulled over to drop Nick, who was on the driver’s side backseat, off, Tony unhooked his own seatbelt, pushed his door open to at least walk his date to his door. It was the least that Tony could do. Much to his utmost dismay. “Wait up, Nick!

“So, I—uh—had a really great time with you—“ Tony began to be interrupted by Nick.

“—but you don’t do repeat dates. Is that what you’re walking me to my door for—you don’t want to feel guilty about letting me down easy?” Nick asked, hurt tainting his sea-green eyes.

“No, no! No… I wanna do this again, and maybe spend more time with you and invite you over and, you know, the works. But I’m kinda in the middle of some sort of battle of wills here, so I’m gonna have to take a raincheck on a repeat date,” Tony tried to painstakingly explain. He should’ve just asked Nick to take a fucking number and wait to be served.

He had never resented agreeing to the Challenge more than he did now.

At this point, he really didn’t know anymore what he stood to lose or gain in keeping to the challenge issued by Steve. Because, really, here was an absolutely _gorgeous_ guy with a very put-out expression for the reason that he expected to be invited to spend the night in Tony’s apartment, and Tony was walking him to the doorstep of his apartment with some flimsy excuses about a raincheck and a battle of wills. And _for what_?

For an opportunity to bang his admittedly gorgeous, but socially-awkward, I-believe-in-love, distrustful, and occasionally sassy neighbor?!

He could be having round after round of really hot sex with Bubble-butt, Bowling Prodigy Nick right now!

Was it really so important to get into Steve’s pants? Was Steve _that_ special, that gorgeous to throw opportunities like this away? Nick probably had them lined up around the block for a chance to go out with him, too; Tony had him, and he was letting it go!

Steeling himself to muster what little strength of will he had, he bored his own honey-gold eyes into Nick’s sea-green ones. “You know what? I’ll explain everything to you when we have that repeat date. How’s that?” Tony promised.

This…this Challenge wasn’t just about getting a chance to screw Steve anymore; this was about _proving everyone wrong_ : Tony Stark wasn’t just a man with sex on the mind; he was more than that. He could have self-control, willpower, and more motivation than keeping an eye on where his next lay would be coming from.

He was going to have a _titanium_ resolve for the next seventeen days and watch everyone gape at what he had been able to pull off. He would get the fucking last laugh if it was the last thing he did!

Slamming Nick against the doorjamb of his apartment door, Tony captured the other man’s lips and kissed the living daylights out of him. It was the least he could do for the unintended cockblocking. It was a way for Nick to remember him, too. And, boy, was Nick going to remember him, the taste of him, the heat of him. Nick would be willing to take a number and wait to be served, all right…

“Whoa,” Nick murmured against Tony’s lips.

“Just something to remember me by until that repeat date,” Tony answered in a sultry voice, giving the other man one last chaste peck before turning around to walk back to the waiting car.

It was already drizzling lightly when he slid back into the car. Maria looked at him with a slightly amused purse of her lips while Steve’s face was in shadow so Tony couldn’t read anything from it. “So can we go now? Or are you having second thoughts about not taking that front door thing inside?” Maria teased.

“Oh no, no. No second thoughts. We can go. We don’t wanna be caught in the middle of this rain any more than we have to,” opined Tony, strapping himself to the seat again.

They were still three blocks out from Tony and Steve’s apartment building’s street when Maria, with furrowed brows, said gravely, “shit… Something’s wrong. I think we got a blown tire.” She signaled to take the car closer to the curb, underneath a streetlight. But the rain was really pouring now that visibility was already a problem.

“Do you have a spare?” Steve asked, leaning forward. “And an umbrella, maybe? Just stay here and I’ll take care of it.”

“Spare’s in the trunk. Damn, I don’t think I have an umbrella,” Maria said, craning her neck to look at the back, then twisted in her seat to feel against the floor of the backseat, then flipped open the glove compartment to rummage there. “I don’t have an umbrella. Listen, Steve, I’ll just call a towing service to get us out of here. If you try to change the tire, you’ll be drenched.”

“Towing service’s gonna cost you. If you have a jack and a spare anyway, you don’t have to shell out. It’s fine; it won’t take long,” Steve reassured, preparing to get out of the car.

“I’ll help you,” Tony offered automatically though he had never changed a flat tire all his life. He’d always had Happy do that for him or he had his car towed. But somehow, it seemed like sitting inside the car with the girl while Steve changed the flat tire by himself was going to be in poor taste. So, what the hell…

They both got out of the car to go to the back while Maria popped the trunk. Steve and Tony were both drenched in a matter of seconds.

Steve worked as quickly as the limited visibility and the pouring rain allowed, taking out the spare from the hidden compartment at the bottom of the trunk and what looked like the jack and a tire wrench. “You wanna jack the car up or you wanna do the lug nuts?”

“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” Tony joked, yelling above the din of the rain and brushing wet brown hair off his forehead and eyes. “I’ll do the jack,” Tony continued before Steve could look at him with dismay that now was not really a good time for a joke.

When Tony had already successfully lifted the car off the ground with the jack, he went to Steve’s other side, where the worst of the pouring rain was blown by the wind, to stand there while the blonde negotiated with the tire’s lug nuts with a tire wrench. “Can you see all right even with me standing here?”

“Yeah!” Steve hollered back in reply. “Why are you standing there anyway? You can return to the car already; I got this.”

“I’m your human umbrella,” Tony yelled back, clutching at the hem of his coat to spread it wider and cover what it could of Steve who was kneeling by the flat tire, still dealing with the lug nuts.

Steve pulled the flat off the wheel base, leant it by the fender and slid the spare on the wheel base. That was Tony’s cue to grab the flat and swapped it in place of the spare in the trunk so it didn’t have to be Steve’s problem later. Working efficiently, Steve re-bolted the lug nuts to secure the new tire before Tony released the catch on the jack and the car was brought back on ground level. Tony took the jack back to the trunk while Steve checked that the lug nuts were tight, and then he, too, handed the tire wrench to Tony to replace in the trunk.

“Take the front passenger seat, I’ll take the backseat,” Tony gestured towards his neighbor. There was no more risk of copping a feel without Nick there with him.

“Shit, sorry Maria—we’re dripping all over your upholstery,” piped Tony, brushing wet hair off his face anew. Thank heavens the car’s A/C was now spewing warm air or Tony would’ve started shivering. He could feel that he was wet to his underwear, and he could imagine that Steve fared no better.

“Are you kidding? I owe you guys. I should really take you back to your apartment so you can change into dry clothes.” She offered a hand towel she had unearthed from her glove compartment and her own hanky for Steve and Tony to dry off, best they could.

The moment Maria pulled up to the curb in front of their apartment, Tony quickly thanked Maria for having been part of his enjoyable evening and said that he hoped to hang out with Maria again, bussing the side of her face with a quick kiss. He left the car with every intention to give Steve some time to cozy up to his date before they called it a night.

He was stripping his soaked top on the apartment’s narrow front porch when Steve collided with him that nearly sent them in a heap on the porch step. “What the—“

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve mumbled, catching Tony by encircling his arm around Tony’s lean waist. They were both sodden, half-shivering, with nothing but Steve’s thin shirt separating them. They stood there, pressed against each other, awkwardly trying not to slip.

Despite being completely doused, Steve’s body was warm. There were water droplets caught on his long dark blonde eyelashes, glistening in the streetlight and the rare flash of lightning. It mesmerized Tony, so much so that he was frozen where he stood with Steve’s arm wrapped around his bare waist.

So much for not copping a feel.

“Sorry,” Steve said again, softly. “Tony, why are you half naked?”

“Because I don’t want to be wet?” Tony replied. He’d rather be half-naked than wet… _What?_ It sounded stupid, but he couldn’t take it back anymore or make a joke out of it. He could’ve made a joke out of it _if_ his brain had been working, but Steve’s arm wrapped around his waist and Steve’s face and neck glistening like alabaster had rendered Tony’s brain dead.

“We should go inside and get out of these wet things,” Steve, clearing his throat, mumbled, let go of Tony’s waist and stepped away from Tony’s personal space.

Tony wanted to reply jokingly with more innuendo, but he found his mind uncharacteristically but blissfully blank. He was beginning to both love and hate Steve’s effect on him, and to think they were only on _Day 13_.

He dreaded to think about the Challenge’s remaining days, and how much more affected by Steve he was going to be by the end of it.


	9. DAYS 14 - 15

With a start, Steve awoke to a sequence of consistent-sounding, evenly-spaced knocks on his apartment door, followed by energetic barking from Captain. Groaning, he dragged himself out of bed to see who it could be.

It couldn’t possibly be Tony because the engineer always knocked hurriedly, in short bursts, like someone was rolling down the stairs— _if_ he even knocked at all because most of the time, Tony would just barge into Steve’s room like it was a mere extension of his own apartment.

Pulling on a ratty shirt so he didn’t have to answer bare-chested, Steve twisted the knob and opened the door to their apartment building’s super, Mr. Phil Coulson, who also lived on the second floor. “Morning Phil. Anything wrong?” Phil only gave him a knock if he needed help on some minor repair work around the building, usually for the blind, old woman, Althea, living next door to him on the second floor.

“Oh no, nothing’s wrong. Everything’s copacetic, for a change. I just wanted to make sure you receive this notice about a tenants’ meeting this afternoon,” said Phil with an easy smile, handing Steve a single sheet of bond paper with the invitation for a tenants’ meeting and the agenda. “So yeah, see you later, Steve.

“Oh and do you think Mr. Stark’s home? I gave him a knock to give him notice, too, before I moved on to you, but I don’t think he’s home,” Phil said, gesturing towards Tony’s closed apartment door.

It was weird that Steve didn’t hear Phil giving Tony’s door a knock first. Normally, he was very attentive to things like that. Maybe it had something to do with the heaviness in his head that made it difficult for him to get out of bed earlier. Shit—was he perhaps coming down with something? It wasn’t unlikely, too, that he was, after the events of last night, changing a flat tire, umbrella-less, in the middle of an unqualified tempest.

“He’s in there, but he just sleeps like the dead. I’ll hand him the notice, so that’d be out of your hair,” offered Steve, which Phil seemed relieved to hear as he relinquished Tony’s notice to Steve for delivery to the recipient.

He watched Phil saunter down the stairs before walking towards Tony’s apartment door and knocking. “Tony? Tony… Are you in there?” He called while he knocked, raising his voice a bit but finding it uncomfortable as his throat felt scratchy all of a sudden. Clearing his throat, he called again, “Tony! Tooooonyyyyyy!”

Finally, the door opened to reveal a shirtless and boxers-clad Tony with the wildest bedhead. “Wah yo wan?” Tony grumbled, scratching at the side of his face by rubbing it against the edge of the open door.

“I have here a—“ Steve began, but his statement was interrupted when his face crumpled and he sneezed. “—notice about a—“ Steve sneezed again. “—tenants’ meeting this—“ He gave another powerful sneeze as he handed the sheet of paper to Tony while the latter, flinching, gingerly accepted what was handed to him. “—afternoon that we—“ Steve sneezed yet again, and Tony gave another obvious flinch at that. “—all have to attend,” Steve finished, sniffling. After a short pause, Steve gave another violent sneeze, which Tony both cringed and grimaced at.

“Jeez, Steve, are you OK?” Tony asked, glancing at the paper absent-mindedly before giving his full attention back to the blonde.

“I think I’m coming down with something.”

“You don’t say,” Tony replied, wincing. Steve could only imagine how he must look like to the engineer. Goodness knew he felt nasty, all right.

“It’s nothing that some water therapy and vitamin C can’t fix. Make sure to be there at the tenants’ meeting at Phil’s place on the second floor,” reminded Steve, nodding towards the notice still gingerly held in Tony’s fingers as if it contained something communicable, which, considering that sniffling Steve had his paws all over it, it probably did.

“Maybe you need to sit this one out; you don’t sound too good,” Tony observed with an imperial raise of an eyebrow.

“I’ll be all right. We all have to be there. There are some really critical things on the agenda,” Steve answered, pinching his nose and sniffing some more. The last thing he needed that morning was to have his nose leak and run in front of Tony Stark. He thought he’d probably never hear the end of Tony’s ribbing. “I’ll see you there, OK?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony confirmed before shutting the door to Steve’s retreating figure.

Steve hobbled back to his apartment and practically crawled back into bed. He could feel his eyes watering and his nasal cavity congesting with every deep breath.

After a fitful half hour of being cocooned in his pillows and sheets, Steve dragged himself out of bed again to drink some water and pop vitamin C capsules. In a last ditch effort to waylay the flu that he knew was coming, Steve popped some flu meds after drinking some warm milk so he didn’t have to medicate on an empty stomach.

By the time that they were supposed to have the tenants’ meeting, Steve was feeling marginally better, enough to haul ass out of his own apartment to swing by Tony’s and convince him to go to the tenants’ meeting. Steve knew that Tony hadn’t had an opportunity to meet the rest of the tenants yet since moving in, so it would be interesting to introduce him to the others.

“How long have you been living in this building anyway?” Tony casually asked as they marched down the staircase towards Phil’s second floor apartment for the meeting. Tony was, surprisingly, not difficult to persuade to attend, although, Steve thought his attire left much to be desired in terms of decency—Tony had on his work clothes: lounge pants and an oil-stained, threadbare shirt, and he could very well be mistaken for a hobo—what was important was his willingness to participate.

“Been here almost six years. I like the community and the way Phil keeps a tight ship,” Steve answered, matter-of-factly.

“So you lived here with your ex, huh? What about her—how did she like the place?”

“She was OK,” replied Steve with a shrug. The truth was Sharon didn’t like the apartment all that much, but as it was the only place they could afford on their combined salaries, Sharon deigned to stay there with Steve, but it couldn’t be denied that she probably never treated it as home as much as Steve did.

The blonde was just thankful that Tony didn’t want to dwell on that too much because he changed the subject with his next question. “Phil… Phil’s the building super?”

“Yep.”

“Oh he’s the reason I’m going to this meeting. I’m gonna need to look the ass-clown in his eye while he tells me again about the _Pentagon-grade walls_ of this place. I have him to profusely thank for my current _peaceful and uneventful_ existence,” practically spat Tony, scratching at his oil-smeared earlobe.

“It’s not Phil’s fault that I have sensitive hearing or that you like them noisy and freaky, Tony,” berated Steve with a quirk of an eyebrow. “I mean, we have a married couple trying to make a baby for the better part of two years two floors below, and their baby-making activities don’t keep the whole building up nights.” _‘That’s just you,’_ Steve wanted to add.

“So I like to spice up my life. _I_ can’t be faulted for that,” Tony retorted as they found themselves before Phil’s apartment door. Steve raised a fist to knock.

Phil welcomed the two, ushering them to the cozy living room with refurbished plump couches, throws and bolsters. The orientation of the apartment was much like Steve’s as it was situated on the same side of the building as Steve’s apartment was, only on a lower floor. But Phil’s place gave off a less bachelor-y feel. It was probably because of all the crocheted doilies and shag area rugs that radiated the impression of a woman maintaining the house.

Phil was unmarried, though. The doilies were his own creation—a hobby of Phil’s as Steve had found out on his third year of living in the building. It was Blind Al, living next door to Phil, who taught him how to crochet. Now, how _Blind_ Al learned to crochet despite her long-time infirmity, Steve didn’t know yet, and he was afraid to ask. There had always been talk around the building about Blind Al’s former work as a CIA operative during the height of the Cold War.

“Is the super married?” Tony murmured towards Steve, snagging a cookie from a side table they had just passed. There were plates of cookies and pitchers of lemonade on the two side tables as well as the center table for the expected attendees.

Steve shook his head in reply.

“Then what’s with the feminine décor?”

“He crochets. He finds it soothing,” said Steve, to which Tony snorted.

Steve saw that, with the exception of the reclusive and private Blind Al, everyone was there: the married couple that Steve had mentioned to Tony, Mr. and Mrs. Thor and Jane Odinson, residents of the east apartment on the third floor; Scott Lang from the west apartment also on the third floor; Clint Barton, who, like Steve, was a long-time resident of the building, from the east apartment on the fourth floor; and living next door to Clint, twins and working students Wanda and Pietro Maximoff.

“Hey new guy.” Clint greeted Tony with a jovial nod and two-fingered salute. “Heya Steve.”

“Hi Clint,” Steve returned the greeting with a lop-sided grin. “How’s Lucky?”

Clint, like Steve, was also blonde-haired and blue-eyed, but he wasn’t as tall. Also like Steve, Clint was the proud and loving owner of a dog, Lucky, who was a pale brown Labrador retriever.

“He’s doing great. Just got his flu shots the other day. How’s Captain? Didn’t he have a paw problem before?” Clint asked, plucking a cookie from another plate on the other side table.

“That was three months ago—when we last had a tenants’ meeting. Stepped on a screw. I feared he was going to get tetanus. Thank God, he didn’t. He’s all good as new now,” reported Steve. “You still take Lucky to work?”

“Twice a week. Most days, I leave him with a friend,” said Clint, washing down his cookie with a swig of lemonade from a paper cup.

As far as Steve knew, Clint worked as a computer analyst for a huge software firm. He had the privilege of being able to bring his pet to work with him because his immediate superior was a groovy boss, and Lucky was so well-behaved, his officemates actually felt less stressed with Clint’s dog around.

“So, it’s a free Saturday for you, huh, Thor?” Steve asked the tan and tall—even taller than him—blonde man who walked across him to paw some cookies, too. Thor was a freelance landscape architect, who worked most Saturdays and missed most of these tenants’ meetings due to his projects. But not today, apparently.

“I just finished the rooftop landscaping of that new skyscraper downtown; I thought I owe myself and the missus some vacation time,” the big burly blonde answered with a twinkle of his sky blue eyes. “It’s good to see you, Steve. I miss crashing your Saturday night video game get-togethers with your buddies.”

“I’ll let you know the next Saturday that we have one,” promised Steve.

On his other side, it was Jane and Scott who had Tony engaged in animated conversation. Steve figured that Tony would find affinity with the two because Mrs. Odinson was an agricultural engineer/researcher working for the city government while Scott was an electrical engineer also working for the city government on the matter of electricity transmission.

“So now that everyone’s here, we should begin,” Phil started with a quick close-mouthed smile.

They, slowly but surely, tackled each and every topic on the agenda that came with the notice for a meeting: sanitation concerns; the repair of the east-side fire escape metal staircase; participation in the annual newspaper drive spearheaded by the city government, which all the apartment buildings in the area compete in and which their building has been winning for three consecutive years now; and the long-awaited repair of the elevator by engaging a contractor for the purpose.

Once or twice, Steve caught Tony staring at him from out of the corner of his eye whenever Steve sniffed or cleared his throat, as if the brunette was expecting him to explode with every sniff or keel over with every half-cough.

Steve responded with a slight tap of his elbow against Tony’s side when he’d caught Tony looking at him, and gestured with his eyeballs that the brunette would do well to pay attention to Phil than to Steve’s sniffing.

Tony had nothing to be concerned about. Steve felt fine. He was all right.

-0-0-0-

Steve was _not_ all right.

His nose felt like it was wadded up with soaked rags but his mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton; his throat itched; his chest hurt with every deep inhale; his head felt so heavy that Steve thought it was going to roll off his shoulders and across his apartment floor; his skin was hot to the touch but he shivered like he was lying prostrate on a thick block of ice in his underwear; his hands were clammy and he ached to his very joints and bones.

It was already way past midnight and he hasn’t slept a wink although he felt tired to the very depth of his bones. He’d been up countless times from the comfortable paradise that was his bed to drink glass upon glass of water, but he couldn’t feel his condition improve. If anything, it became harder and harder to drag his ass to the kitchen and refill his pitcher as the night deepened.

Steve hated getting sick; it was about fifty percent worse for him whenever he got sick because his immune system was shot due to the long-lasting effects of his injuries courtesy of his last tour of duty. He was careful to keep himself physically fit as much as possible but there were infrequent times like this that sickness would creep up on him from left field and he was worse than a helpless baby.

It was especially difficult after Sharon left him because he now had to fend for himself again after three years of having a reliable and solid support system whenever he fell ill. He had grown accustomed to being taken care of that he had forgotten how lousy it was to be alone. And sick. To be alone and sick.

Bucky and Sam were awesome and everything, but Steve couldn’t expect them to be around all the time to wait on him hand and foot whenever he was incapacitated due to illness. So, like right now, he was going to have to play the roles of both patient and nurse. Until he could get back on his feet again.

The next time that Steve forced his eyelids open, it was to a sliver of weak sunlight through a crack in the curtains of his bedroom windows that he had haphazardly pulled shut on one of his bathroom trips during the course of the night. There was no way he could go to work today in this state. He was going to have to muster his remaining strength to text Sam to cover for him at work and his boss to apologize for having to miss work that day. If he could just lift his arms to grab his mobile from the bedside table, everything would be dandy.

He was able to text the necessary parties, albeit laboriously. After which, he sunk back deeper in his sheets to cocoon himself in bed until his body would’ve already fought through the illness, which Steve reasonably believed was nothing more serious than the common flu.

Steve just stayed in bed the whole day, drinking water whenever he could find the strength to stagger out of bed and relieving his bladder whenever he needed to but not eating because he didn’t have the appetite. Sometimes, he would let his arm dangle from the edge of the bed to pet Captain’s silky fur. At least, Captain was there to keep him company while he bore the illness with quiet resignation.

He awoke next to the sound of panicked hissing, and Steve realized three things: that it was already evening; that Captain was barking and yapping quite excitedly because they were no longer alone in the apartment; and that the one hissing in panic to someone else at the other end of his mobile phone was Tony Stark. So that was who Steve had forgotten to text that morning to inform that he was sick—Tony. What was Tony doing in his bedroom? How did he get in when Steve specifically remembered locking his front door?

“He’s barely conscious, Pep. I don’t know—should I call 911 or haul him to a cab and take him to the nearest hospital?” Tony mumbled on the mouthpiece of his phone and paced the width of Steve’s bedroom with his confident strides.

“Don’t’ call 911,” groaned Steve through gritted teeth, shifting in bed, which, judging by the numbness of his right arm, he didn’t do much of the entire day. “’m fine. It’s just flu.”

“Wait, Pep—I think he just spoke. Hang on… Steve? Steve? Are you awake? What did you say?”

“No 911. It’s just flu,” Steve repeated, painstakingly. Goodness knew he’d been fussed over by enough 911-medevac and hospital emergency triage personnel during past illnesses to know that nothing good came of it but absolute humiliation on his part. He was better off waiting the illness out by himself in the comfort of his own home.

“Oh OK,” Tony told him, breathing a relieved sigh before speaking to Pepper, who was still on the line, again. “He said it’s just the flu. So what am I supposed to do now?” He listened and occasionally nodded as Pepper, presumably, dictated what one should do for someone who had the flu.

Tony forced his butt on Steve’s bed, pushing against the sick man’s prostrate body so he, too, could sit down on the bed. Then, Tony placed a hand on Steve’s forehead before letting the same hand graze the side of Steve’s face and his neck. Tony’s hand was on the cold side, and Steve shivered. Goosebumps erupted on everywhere else that Tony’s hand had touched. Steve guessed that it might be because Steve was burning up with fever. At least, he hoped that he shivered _because_ he was feverish and not because of some _other_ reason.

“He’s really hot, Pep. Are you sure I’m not supposed to alert the _cavalry_ or something?”

Tony stayed on the phone for a few more minutes before he ended the call and gave his sick neighbor his unadulterated attention. “I told you that you should’ve just rested instead of attending that meeting yesterday,” scolded Tony but concern was still obvious in his bright brown eyes.

“It’s just flu. It’s not like I’m gonna kick it.” Steve’s voice was hoarse; from disuse all day or due to the scratchy throat, he didn’t know anymore.

“When was the last time you took some medication? Pepper said to ensure that you get round-the-clock flu meds…”

“I think I took some before lunch. I didn’t take note of the time, though,” answered Steve, shifting where he lay again. Tony was really—alarmingly—close to him.

“Did you even eat at all today?” Tony questioned, furrowing his brows and touching the skin on Steve’s forearm this time.

“No.”

Tony tsked reproachfully and said, “right. I’ll make some chicken soup or broth or whatever. I remember that my mother always used to feed me some whenever I got sick…” Tony clapped his hands against his thighs before standing up from Steve’s bed.

“Do you even _know_ how to cook?” Steve asked to distract Tony from being too concerned about him being ill. “I don’t want to have to evacuate my apartment in this state all because you’d burned _soup_.”

“Ha bloody ha. Think you’re being funny, don’t you?” Tony asked, pursing his lips in sarcasm and walking out of Steve’s bedroom.

Steve thought he might have dozed off because it felt like a while before Tony was sauntering back in the bedroom, carrying a tray with a bowl of steaming something, a fresh pitcher of water and mats of flu medication to force-feed his patient.

“Sit up and look alert. Florence Nightingale’s here,” Tony announced, jokingly, setting the tray on the bedside table and reclaiming his seat on Steve’s bed—even more disturbingly close this time. “Think you can feed yourself or do you need me to do it?” Tony prepped by getting the bowl and offering a sloshing spoonful of broth towards the patient.

“I think I’ll risk it,” Steve said, sitting up more properly and taking the bowl of broth and spoon from his unexpected nurse.

“You know what—whatever. But just so you know you’ve passed up a golden, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get spoon-fed by _the_ Tony Stark,” chided the engineer with a your-loss shrug.

“As against the risk of possibly accidentally pouring piping hot soup on my lap and cooking my dick as an end result? I’ll wave to the opportunity as it passes me by; thank you very much,” Steve mumbled, greedily slurping the soup with the bowl, tucked on the gap between his folded legs.

“I have very steady hands, Mister—just so you know,” retorted Tony petulantly.

“Like I said, I don’t wanna risk it,” he interjected. “By the way, how did you get in here Tony?” Steve asked, his wide, expectant blue eyes boring into Tony’s brown ones.

“W-eeeell,” Tony said, notably prolonging his syllables that signaled to Steve that there was something dodgy about the circumstances of his presence within Steve’s apartment. He cocked his head to the side and scratched at the back of his neck, grimacing. “I kinda had to pick the lock to get your door open. In my own defense, I knocked first. I wondered why you weren’t around after work, so I jumped in the car, skipped dinner to burn rubber getting here, thinking that something might be wrong. So yeah, I gave your door a knock and then your dog started throwing an unholy racket. Thinking the worst and dreading the ire of the neighbors because your dog wouldn’t stop yapping, I picked your lock, and—by the way—barrel bolts have a purpose, Steve. You’d do well to slide shut the three— _five_ barrel bolts on your door because they’re not just there as wood ornaments, you know. And lo and behold, when I got in, I found you wrapped like a human burrito in your blankets, red in the face, breathing laboriously and burning up with fever! And I _nearly shit a brick_ , Steve; I fucking panicked—”

“—so you called Pepper—“

“—so I called Pepper and raised hell, asking what I was supposed to do because you were out of it! Should I strip you down and throw you in a tub full of ice water? Should I rush you to the hospital? And here you are, looking worse than death warmed over—just so you know, questioning my cooking skills and suspecting that I’d douse your dick in hot broth like the world’s sassiest ingrate. The next time I exhibit any sort of concern for you, remind me to shoot my head off instead for all the good that’ll do me,” spat Tony with an over-the-top pout and an arch of his well-defined eyebrows.

Steve schooled his face into a contrite look with an edge of amusement to it. It _was_ both amusing and endearing to know that Tony was worried about his welfare. “So… You _were_ worried about me?” Steve fished with a lop-sided grin despite still feeling like total crap.

“You do realize that this is the first time since the challenge started that you didn’t pass by the office to pick me up so you could keep an eye on me? And for the record, I wasn’t worried so much as _curious_ about what might have happened to you,” Tony corrected him.

But Steve didn’t believe him. Tony looked worried. Or at least, as worried as someone like Tony Stark had any right to be.

“Besides, it is the monumental halfway mark to the Celibacy Challenge, so I kinda wanted to celebrate such a landmark event. When you didn’t show up, I was put out ‘cause I so wanted to gloat that I was able to reach the halfway point. You didn’t think I could do that, dintcha?” gloated Tony. It was probably hours too late for a well-deserved gloat but Steve let him anyway.

“I must say that I had my doubts. But what I _never_ doubted was that you could do anything if you put your mind to it. Halfway point, huh? Did… _you_ believe you could reach this point yourself?” Steve was curious. He watched Tony furtively as he slurped the hot broth from the bowl propped on his lap.

“If it were about anything else but having sex, of course I would have reached this point,” scoffed Tony, observing as Steve slurped on his soup. “But, to be honest—no… I didn’t think I’d reach the halfway point for this challenge,” Tony admitted with a boyish smile himself. “Guess there’s always something new that you learn about yourself every day. And I probably have you to thank for that?”

“Hey, _I_ only wanted thirty days’ good night’s sleep,” downplayed Steve, placing the half-finished bowl of broth on his bedside table. “Anything else you learn about yourself from that is all on you, Tony,” said Steve, burrowing himself anew within his sheets. “Thanks for the soup. And thanks for looking out for me.”

“Anytime,” Tony simply replied. “Hey—can I stay for a while and make sure you’ll be OK?”

“I’d like that,” Steve sleepily said back.


	10. DAYS 15 - 16

Although the halfway point of the challenge didn’t go down as Tony’d hoped it would—he imagined going to a nice restaurant with Steve, making eyes at gorgeous-looking men and women he had no hopes of being able to take home and gloating to his heart’s content at Steve that he, Tony, had an iron will when it came to keeping his junk in his pants, Tony supposed it could’ve been worse. Steve could’ve been sicker than he was that he had to be rushed to the hospital or Tony could’ve reneged on the challenge terms the moment that Steve was a no-show after work, drove to Nick’s, screwed him senseless and all the while, Steve was sick as a dog, and Tony would’ve confessed falling off the wagon in absolute guilt.

No… the way things turned out wasn’t half bad, really. He still got to hang out with Steve, and now, Steve owed him, too, for being all Florence Nightingale on his ass, preparing soup and giving him his meds, making sure to keep him hydrated by waking him up every once in a while and giving him some water.

In the course of the evening, Tony had unearthed a box of cooling patches to stick to Steve’s forehead, a basin and some small towels for a cold towel bath as Pepper had instructed. It was just that Tony was yet to pull his sleeves up and actually undertake the cold towel bath because he was afraid that Steve would think him presumptuous and maliciously handsy. Or that Steve would think Tony was taking advantage of the debilitating illness to cop a feel or something. And Tony, for his part, starved for intimate physical contact as he was, was also unsure whether giving Steve a cold towel bath was such a great idea.

Somehow, the prospect of having to give an ill person who was out of it a cold towel bath while suffering through an intense arousal was not very attractive for Tony.

But when two in the morning rolled around and Steve’s temperature was still so hopelessly feverish that the latter had started shivering with intense chills, Tony made a decision. Steve could knee him in the balls for being a handsy motherfucker but he’s giving Steve that cold towel bath if it was the last thing he did.

Tony was as systematic as he could about it, brushing the sheets off Steve’s limbs first and toweling off his already bare feet, arms and hands.

“OK, bud—I’m gonna have to take off your lounge pants to get at your legs, all right? Hopefully, you’re not the type who likes to go commando and you have boxers under there in a design and fit that’s least arousing,” Tony murmured like a prayer rather than a statement to the person he was supposed to be talking to.

The engineer gingerly pulled the pants off his neighbor to expose the powerfully-built legs that just about made Tony’s mouth water and his eyes bug out. Damn if Steve didn’t have the body of a _veritable god_! They were fair-skinned with sparse hair and awesome, _awesome_ definition to them—like they were meant to straddle or be straddled. “Not a good idea to think about _straddling anything_ right now, Stark,” Tony chastised himself as he scrubbed Steve’s legs with a cold towel. The blonde started whimpering because of the onslaught of cold.

After Steve’s legs, Tony proceeded to his torso, pulling the blonde’s shirt off and slipping it off his head. Steve’s torso was actually more magical and awe-inspiring than Steve’s legs, if that was even possible. His skin was the color of alabaster and his chest displayed the most tear-jerking set of pecs this side of the fucking continent. Steve boasted a six-pack, washboard abs that made Tony want to sing odes to all the gods he knew of.

Steve Rogers was fucking _blessed_ indeed! And if this was how the visible body parts of the man looked like, Tony could scarcely imagine what his family jewels and other secret man-parts of his were like. Tony was starting to feel hot himself that he feared he was also coming down with something.

After Tony had towel-bathed his patient, he went in search of fresh sheets to replace Steve’s blankets. He didn’t know exactly what it was for, but he could remember his own mother doing that whenever he was sick with the flu. Tony supposed it was to make the patient more comfortable.

He always remembered his mother whenever he was sick, and now, more than ever, with her fast approaching birth anniversary…

While he walked around Steve’s apartment, Tony did Captain the kindness of putting out some dog food in a bowl for him, seeing as Steve was in no condition to have been able to feed his dog all day. The dog actually looked at Tony gratefully for it.

He refilled Steve’s water tumbler, replaced Steve’s blanket and, concurrently, woke the patient up in time to drink his flu meds, which Pepper instructed him to administer round-the-clock for maximum effect.

“Tony, why am I nearly naked?”

The engineer hoped the expression on his face was innocent enough to not betray the lecherous thoughts swimming in his mind while looking at Steve’s mouth-watering body. “Oh yeah, about that—I gave you a cold towel bath,” he said dismissively, not wanting to make a major fuss of it and incite suspicion on Steve’s part that Tony actually enjoyed giving Steve that cold towel bath more than he should have. “Time for you take your meds.” Tony, changing the subject abruptly, handed him the medicine mat and the tumbler of water and watched his patient down the prescribed dose of meds.

“It’s probably past three in the morning and you’re still here,” Steve observed, protecting his decency by covering his bare chest up.

“Pepper said to keep you on round-the-clock meds.”

“I know you mean well, Tony, but I know how to take care of myself. I haven’t had anyone else but me to take care of me for two years now,” Steve pointed out, reaching for the digital thermometer at about the same time that Tony did.

“I hear you, and believe me, I _know_ that,” Tony assured, getting his paws on the thermometer first and resetting it before brandishing it for Steve to take into his mouth. “But I’ll never hear the end of it from Pepper if _she_ hears that I abandoned you to fend for yourself while you were still sick after giving her such grief, asking what I was supposed to do with you.

“I’ll go home as soon as your temperature hits a not-so-alarming level. How about that?” Tony asked in a compromise. “Besides, it’s not as if I have anything better to do with my night and I don’t live just across the hall from you.”

“Thanks Tony,” Steve mumbled through the thermometer.

When it beeped, Tony pulled it out of Steve’s maw and noted the digital read-out. The fever was not as high as a couple of hours ago, but Steve still had a fever.

“Drink some more water and get back to sleep,” practically commanded Tony. “We’ll check your temperature again the next time you take your meds. You can probably have another cold towel bath then.” And no, Tony wasn’t looking forward to _that_ at all.

“All right. Good night, neighbor.”

“Good night, sick person,” Tony jokingly said.

Tony claimed the recliner on the left side of the bed by sinking into it and folding his legs underneath him to get comfortable.

He supposed that Pepper’s ire was only part of the reason he was still in Steve’s apartment, looking after the blonde. What he didn’t tell Steve was that he wanted to make sure that the blonde was all right before he left to go home himself. Tony could vaguely remember that Steve once said that he had a delicate immune system due to an injury during his last tour of duty, so Tony knew that Steve didn’t get sick like any normal person—his illnesses were more severe or more protracted.

Tony wanted to downplay his concern, but the truth was, he got really worried for Steve especially when he let himself into the blonde’s apartment to find the latter unresponsive and burning up with fever. It could be taken to be regular concern for a friend that Tony had gotten to know—heaven knew he had not got a lot of friends like those, but deep, deep down, Tony was afraid of the reason _why_ he really felt such concern for his neighbor.

He didn’t have much reason to feel an affinity for Steve—the latter, after all, was the reason he was in the middle of the most trying month of his life. Plus, Steve was so distrustful of him to boot. Tony didn’t really know a lot about Steve apart from what he had learned from Steve’s long-time friends.

There was absolutely no reason to be all protective over and concerned for his neighbor apart from wanting to be reassured that Steve would be ready to hold up his end of the bargain after thirty days.

But Tony was. Protective and concerned. And he didn’t want to scrutinize why. Only that he _knew_ that if their situations were reversed, Steve would have done the same thing for him; Tony was certain of it.

Steve was the kind of person who had both the decency and the kindness to look out for him had Tony been the one who had fallen ill. At least, it was the common consensus of everyone Tony had talked to in the tenants’ meeting yesterday when it came to how Steve was as a friend and neighbor. All of the other tenants only had nice things to say about each other. And especially about Steve.

He had to admit that since Tony’s longest month started, he’d always seen Steve to be the antagonist, the killjoy, the wet blanket, the conservative stick-in-the-mud. He was biased against Steve. He only saw Steve as a means to two ends: proving a point and getting laid.

But maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe it was high time to really and truly get to know Steve. After all, Tony wasn’t lying when he’d said he didn’t think he had it in him to stay chaste for fifteen days and counting. So he supposed he owed it to Steve that he’d discovered a newfound strength of willpower—one he never knew he had.

He wasn’t sticking to Steve’s bedside because he was worried, and he was worried because he felt something he had never believed in before, no. He was sticking to Steve’s bedside because, even against his best intentions, Tony had come to see Steve as a _friend_. And considering that he had so few of them, he felt inclined to protect and look out for those few he had.

Tony leaned forward in the recliner to place his palm against Steve’s forehead to check that Steve was indeed already on his way to recovery. He then leaned back again, shifted on the recliner to find a relatively comfortable position, and was, himself, asleep within minutes.

-0-0-0-

It was to the blessed, blessed smell of freshly-brewed coffee that Tony woke up to, nose twitching and brows furrowing in wonder whom he was supposed to thank for that amazing wake-up call. He slowly opened his eyes, blinking owlishly at the early morning light pouring in from the bedroom windows of what, decidedly, was not his own apartment.

“Ngrgh,” Tony groaned in gibberish, shifting in the bedside recliner chair where he had fallen asleep. Right, so it wasn’t the most ideal place and position to get some shut-eye as Tony’s back protested when he tried to stretch the kinks out.

“Morning,” Steve, dressed in a pair of basketball shorts and a threadbare shirt, greeted, placing a big mug of coffee on the bedside table that was between the recliner where Tony had fallen asleep and the bed where Steve had himself cocooned while with the flu.

“Oh my God, you brought me coffee…” Tony praised, stretching his arms and making grabby hands for the warm mug. “I love you,” Tony cooed at the mug before taking a deep inhale of the coffee. Realizing that Steve might construe his last words differently, Tony cleared his throat to clarify, “I was talking to the coffee.”

“Yeah I thought you were,” Steve said with a thin-lipped smile, turning on his heels to, presumably, return to the kitchen.

“Hey—what time is it? You should take your flu meds again,” reminded Tony, getting off the bedside recliner with a grimace at his limbs, weakened by pins and needles, and following Steve to the kitchen.

“All done,” replied Steve, pouring a cup of coffee for himself and leaning against the counter to take a sip.

Unmindful of Steve’s need for personal space, Tony walked up to the blonde, invaded the latter’s personal space by placing his free palm against Steve’s forehead, the side of his face and the side of his neck, in succession, to check Steve’s temperature. “You still feel warm to me. Have you checked your latest temperature?”

Steve flinched a little, pursed his lips to hide his discomfort at Tony’s actuations, and responded, “I still have a bit of a fever, so I called in sick at the office again. What about you? Don’t you have to go to work?”

Tony shrugged, sitting on Steve’s modest dining table with his legs dangling over the edge, all without spilling a drop of his precious coffee. “See—the perks to working for a company you own is that you can opt not to go to work if you don’t feel like it and no one will dare give you flak for it,” he answered. “So… since neither of us are working today, do you wanna play hooky or what?”

“Play hooky, huh? What do you have in mind?” Steve asked, more suggestively than Tony expected from him.

“Well, seeing as you still have a fever, we can’t do anything too _tiring_ or _vigorous_ ,” Tony replied, injecting some innuendo in his reply just so Steve would realize that Tony could play at that game all fucking day, every day, baby. “So why don’t we just hang out—have, maybe, pizza or Chinese delivered and watch movies?”

“Sounds like my kinda hooky,” said Steve with a knowing nod. “But I’m not sure if that’s _Tony Stark_ ’s kinda hooky.”

“Why? What’s _my_ kinda hooky then?” Tony asked innocently.

Steve replied, “less wholesome, dirtier kinda hooky.”

Tony schooled his face into offended indignation. “FYI, mister—I don’t do that anymore, not for the past _15 days_ , at least.”

“I see we’re still on gloating mode,” Steve observed, taking a slurp of his coffee with a definite upturn to the corners of his lips.

“It can only get worse—from here on out, I’m gonna rub it in the face of the naysayers that I’m Tony Stark and I will not be… _cowed_ by the demands of the flesh! I’m stronger than that. I have willpower of iron, and I _will_ succeed. Thirty days is _nothing_ ,” scoffed Tony with a proud jut of his chin in the air.  

Steve chuckled into his mug at that, finished off his coffee and placed his mug in the sink to be dealt with later. “So… _Iron Man_ —what do you suggest we watch then?”

“Right—I’m just gonna pop over at my place to get a bath and to get my hard drive. I have terabytes of movies there that you can choose from,” said Tony, stepping in front of Steve’s sink to wash their coffee mugs himself. “I’m also gonna give Pep a call to give her a heads-up not to expect me in the office and maybe give my fave pizza place a ring. We need pizzas up in here.”

Tony met Steve’s narrowed eyes. “What are you looking at me like that for?” Then, turning to the mugs he had placed in the utensil stand to air dry, he raised a questioning brow at his neighbor. “I know how to build a _sentient toaster_ , for sobbing out loud, Rogers—of course, I can wash used mugs!”

“I just didn’t think you could tie your shoelaces without Pepper, much less wash dishes or cook soup,” commented Steve.

“So you think I drink out of paper cups and eat from takeaway packages, don’t you?”

Steve raised his hands in surrender. “I just didn’t take you for a domestic person; that’s all.”

“Funny how little we actually know about each other,” Tony said, offhandedly.

“Funny,” agreed Steve in a nearly inaudible voice.

Tony wiped his hands on a rag hanging from Steve’s vintage stove and oven and made for the front door to pop over at his place as he’d said. “So, um, yeah—I’ll be back in a jiff.”

As soon as he was in his place, Tony did his morning ablutions, and then gave Pepper a ring to tell her that he wasn’t coming in today. Pepper, however, was more interested in hearing about how Steve was, if he had, by some miracle, survived the night considering that he had _Tony_ for a nurse.

“When are you ever gonna have faith in me?” Tony asked in a huff, placing his mobile between his jaw and shoulder to have use of both his hands to clear debris off his armoire and find his hard drive of movies.

“So…” Pepper said through the phone, trailing off.

“So?”

“So… how‘s Steve now?” Pepper asked, inoffensively

“He still has a fever, but he’s so much better compared to last night,” automatically reported Tony, still rummaging in his stuff. Why did he own so much useless junk anyway?

“So… are you still playing nurse to Steve that’s why you’re not coming in to the office today?” Pepper fished. Tony really didn’t like her multiple use of the word _‘So’_. It irked him.

“No,” sullenly replied Tony, complete with _The Face_ ® that Pepper couldn’t see. Too bad. “I barely got any sleep last night, making sure that Rogers wouldn’t burn his skin off, and whatever little sleep I got was while folded in on myself in a very uncomfortable bedside recliner so now my back’s fucking killing me. _That’s_ why I’m not gonna come in to the office today.”

“O-kaay… I’m just saying that you’ve probably gotten less sleep before when you were still screwing your nights away and probably hurt more muscles contorting yourself into positions above and beyond the Kama Sutra, and _that’s_ your current excuse for skiving off work today?” Pepper probed with unmistakable humor in her words.

Sometimes, Tony hated her razor-sharp tongue and wit; and even more so today that he found himself opening and closing his mouth, scrambling for something to throw back at her, and coming up blank.

“What—no witty comeback? My, my—your _back_ must really be killing you,” Pepper badgered.

“Bugger off, woman,” Tony retorted. “My body is used to sleeplessness and aches and pains caused by _sex_ , _not_ by playing Nurse Betty.”

“Sure Tony, of course,” said Pepper, hardly convinced of Tony’s flimsy reasoning.

“Oh by the way, what’s the delivery number of that pizza place I really like? Or maybe that Chinese restaurant with the awesome chow mien fried rice? I can’t find their pamphlet in the mess that’s my apartment right now,” complained the engineer with a loud ‘tsk’.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be a dear friend and give them a call in your behalf to order your usual,” assured Pepper, back to being the dependable Pepper that Tony adored and had saved Tony’s behind on countless occasions. “Should I have them deliver it to your door or Steve’s?”

Tony took it back—Pepper was a vicious, vicious, _dangerous_ woman and Tony absolutely hated her. “I’m hanging up on you, you witch!” He practically screeched in irritation before jabbing an angry finger at the screen of his phone, cutting the call.

He was still seething and nearly gnashing his teeth at Pepper’s gall when he barged back into Steve’s place, carrying his hard drive, some chips and soda from the meager stock in his own apartment.

“You OK?” Steve asked, concerned for Tony’s thunderous expression.

“Yeah, yeah—why shouldn’t I be?” Tony was dismissive. “I should be asking _you_ that; you’re the one who’s recovering from an illness.”

“I’m OK,” reassured Steve. “By the way, thanks for last night—for, you know, staying over and looking out for me. I haven’t had anyone do that these past couple of years after Sha—“

“—don’t worry about it, Steve. It was no big deal,” interrupted Tony before they could delve into the matter of Steve’s failed relationship again. “So, I thought we could watch _Now You See Me 2_. Have you seen it? ‘Cause I haven’t and I’ve been meaning to, but I haven’t had the time.”

“No, I haven’t seen it yet. Sure, let’s watch that,” acceded Steve, gesturing towards his TV, which before then, Tony had only ever used to play video games on some Saturdays with Steve, Bucky and Sam.

They were 2/3 done with the movie when a knock sounded on the door. It was the pizza from Tony’s favorite pizza place, and Tony remembered again how he had put the phone down on Pepper when she’d joked about where she was going to have it delivered. Apparently, she went with having it sent to Steve’s place. Like she had Tony all figured out that he’d be hanging out at Steve’s.

Pepper was a _she-devil_. A bloody Satan incarnate in five-inch-heeled Louboutins and a French twist.

The sinfully scrumptious pizzas assuaged Tony’s irritation at Pepper’s antics. Steve also enjoyed the pizza, and looked healthier even, after consuming four huge slices.

The movie was satisfactory, too. Tony turned a blind eye to the weird twist in the story instead of analyzing it to within an inch of the end credits when Steve commented that he thought the movie was good.

Before they could start on another movie, Tony urged Steve to take his temperature and drink his meds again. As it turned out, Steve _still_ had a bit of a fever, so they just decided to queue another movie to pass the time until Steve had to take his medicines again. They agreed on _The Shawshank Redemption_ , which was one of Tony’s favorite movies, and one that Steve was yet to see in its entirety.

It was surprisingly nice to share the movie with Steve. The latter didn’t mind all of Tony’s trivia commentary about the making of the movie. At some point, they delved into a bit of philosophy especially after the suicide of the newly-freed prisoner who had spent nearly all his life in prison.

“It’s just like shell-shock after spending some time in an active warzone. At some point, you get used to it that when you’re taken out of there, you don’t know what to do with yourself. You’ve been in that environment for so long; you actually yearn to go back to the fighting instead of living a normal life. I’ve seen it,” Steve told Tony. There was a distant look on his face, like he, himself, was recalling what it felt like.

“Did you use to have it—post-traumatic stress disorder?” Tony hesitantly asked.

“Not as worse as Bucky. There was a time I feared he would never recover, never get into the groove of an everyday, normal life. We mostly helped each other get through the worst of it,” Steve wistfully recalled. “And then, Shar— _and then_ , I was in a long-term relationship, and eventually, the shell-shock dissipated,” said Steve, recovering from nearly dropping a reference to his ex again. “I mean, I still have the odd dream every once on a while, but for the most part, I think I’ve recovered.”

Tony perfectly understood, of course. He, himself, had suffered from some form of PTSD because of the circumstances of his kidnapping a while back. It probably wasn’t as extensive as Steve and Bucky’s shell-shock but it was trauma, all right. And just like Steve, he still had the occasional nightmare about his experience. However, what really rocked Tony to his core was that he had suspected that it was someone close to him who had masterminded the plot to get him out of the way: his own godfather and his father’s best friend. No wonder he wasn’t right in the head when it came to relationships and trust. One of his long-standing reasons was ‘cause he knew what it felt like to be betrayed by someone he trusted 100%. He swore to himself it would never happen again.

“I guess to a certain extent you can say that I know the feeling, what with the kidnapping and all,” Tony absent-mindedly let slip.

“Kidnapping?” Steve asked, half-aghast, half-curious.

Pepper always said Tony’s brain-to-mouth filter could use some work.

“Y—yeah. I was, uh, sort of…you know…kidnapped—before— _a long time ago_. A very, very long time ago. That’s why I said I know PTSD to a certain extent,” Tony revealed but clarified that it was nothing serious, that he had already moved on from it.

“Whoa… I’m—I’m sorry about that, Tony. I didn’t know,” Steve sympathized, softly patting Tony’s forearm that he could reach for a morsel of comfort for something Tony had more than moved on from.

“It’s all right. No one did. It wasn’t something that the media got wind of at the time. The mastermind kinda covered it up—said I partied too hard and eloped with someone or something,” he explained with a short bark of wry laughter. “The media ate it up and no one was the wiser. When I got back, I dealt with it—with the person responsible.”

“How _did_ you get back?”

“I escaped my captors. With difficulty. But I did it,” Tony answered, fidgeting. He never did like talking about the kidnapping, not even with his closest friends. To have to live through it was more than enough for a hundred lifetimes; he didn’t want to have to relive it. “It was a long time ago. Maybe…can we, um, get off the subject? You’re already ill; I don’t want to have to make you depressed, too.”

Steve, thankfully, respected that request.

The mood picked up from there when they moved on to their third movie: _My Cousin Vinny_. It was another old classic with a great story, awesome actors and funny dialogue about a first-time lawyer who goes to a small town to save his cousin from a wrong murder accusation.

“When I was young, I initially wanted to become a lawyer,” Steve disclosed during the course of the funny trial scenes in the movie. “My mom encouraged me even if I knew it was difficult for her to support me as it was, all by herself, after my dad died when I was seven years old. I’ve had to completely let go of my dreams to be a lawyer after she died when I was seventeen. I barely finished high school with the small nest egg she had left me. So, I joined up in the army as soon as I was legal, to support myself. Goodbye forever to Steven Grant Rogers, Attorney-at-law.”

“Well—the loss of the legal profession is the military’s gain, isn’t that right?” Tony asked with amusement, wordlessly passing the mat of Steve’s medicines to him to take.

“What about you—did you always want to be an engineer-businessman?” Steve asked before dry-swallowing his flu medication.

“I always wanted to be an engineer. Not to boast or anything but I built my first circuit board when I was four years old. I assembled my first robot when I was eight. I’ve always loved to build things. I’m happiest when I’m up to my eyeballs in wires, gears and motor oil,” confessed Tony.

They enjoyed the movie and their side discussions and confessions so much they barely noticed the time passing. They were in the middle of their fourth movie ( _Jurassic World_ ) when they both discerned that it was beginning to get dark outside.

“Hey, um, why don’t you stay over for dinner? I can whip up some sandwiches for us,” offered Steve, preparing to get up from the couch, just as Tony paused their movie.

“Thanks but you don’t have to strain yourself. I can just call for some Chinese,” Tony said, plucking his phone from the back pocket of his jeans to look through his contacts for his favorite Chinese restaurant delivery.

He was on-hold with the restaurant’s central delivery portal when there was another knock on Steve’s door.

“That was fast,” marveled Steve, placing the food packages of Chinese takeaway on the center table of his cozy living room. “He said it’s already been paid for.”

“I’m on-hold on their delivery portal. I haven’t even ordered yet,” Tony said, ending his call and, at the same time, plucking the receipt from the top of the boxes of dim sum, noodles, chow mien fried rice and spring rolls. It was everything he usually ordered from the Chinese place he liked so much.

There could only be one explanation for this: “Pepper.”

Of all the under-handed, sneaky, and maliciously teasing things, this would take the fucking cake!

“That’s neat, how she knew what you wanted,” Steve observed, beginning to dig into the bag where all the yummy smell was coming from. “How did she know you’d still be here, though? I mean, I don’t think the delivery guy gave your apartment door a knock first before going to mine or I would have heard it if someone was knocking at your door and would’ve told you about it…”

Pepper guessed Tony was still going to be at Steve’s because she was a huge tease, a sneaky, wily wench who wanted to read stuff into Tony and Steve’s association that weren’t there to begin with. But of course, Tony couldn’t very well tell Steve that. “Well…we have been colleagues and friends for a long time; we’re bound to know each other very well by now.”

They were digging into some world-class chow mien and gorging themselves on braised beef and pork and shrimp shumai when Steve asked: “yeah—Tony, can I ask you something? About Pepper?”

Oh God… Did Steve like _Pepper_ perhaps? Maybe enough to want to _date_ her? Oh God. Not that there was anything wrong with his neighbor dating his closest confidante, but if Tony and Steve were going to do the dirty at the end of thirty days then that would become super awkward. He and Pepper were close as bantering siblings and everything but they weren’t _that_ close!

Not to mention that if Pepper found out that the guy she was dating had once been Tony’s conquest, Tony was looking at the undesirable prospect of living the rest of his life as a eunuch…

“Sure—um, ask away,” Tony replied, half-dreading to hear the actual question.

“Did you ever…you know had sexual relations with Pepper? I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that you seem very close, and she _is_ quite attractive. So, it’s—“     

“—let me stop you right there, Steve,” interrupted Tony, raising his palm up on a halting gesture. “I never had sex with Pepper, and I’m never having sex with Pepper. I mean, she’s beautiful— _ravishing_ , even—but even a sleaze like me draws the line somewhere.

“I only have two cardinal—near unbreakable—rules in my life: never do the same person more than twice; and don’t do friends, and Pepper, being one of the very few I have, is, therefore, off-limits,” Tony explained to an attentive Steve. “So, you know, if you’re interested in her, you can rest assured that I never had my wicked way with her.”

“Oh no, no! I’m not interested in Pepper,” denied Steve with a placating gesture. “You can say that I was just curious about the nature of your relationship with her. Because some couples could be dating a long time already and not have the same enviable relationship you have with Pepper. So I just thought you had a history or something.”

Tony chuckled at that. “Oh we had a history, all right. I doubt I’d be sitting here in your living room, eating Chinese, alive and in one piece without Pepper.” It was true, too. Pepper had pulled him out of some tough scrapes and stood by him through the worst episodes of his life. He owed Pepper so much. His irritation at her presumptuousness and teasing waned a little as he remembered Pepper’s unwavering care and concern for his well-being.

The two were in companionable silence, eating their Chinese takeaway and watching the action of _Jurassic World_ unfold on screen, when something occurred to Tony, so suddenly, he nearly choked on a spring roll.

“Whoa, Tony—hey—are you OK?” Steve asked, sliding closer to him on the couch to lightly pat at his back. Steve also scrambled for a paper cup on the center table to pour water for Tony. “You OK?” Steve repeated with furrowed eyebrows in concern.

“Y—yeah,” Tony answered, catching his breath. He was OK—he was more than OK, actually. He had hung out all day with Steve, watching movies, sharing stories about themselves, eating great food, and doing what _friends_ usually did. And Tony was actually contented about how his day had gone. He liked it. He liked it more than he had ever liked anything in his crazy life so far—he liked it _more than sex_ , even, and that was rare for him!

This was the longest he’s hung out with any one person without fucking them, and he was surprised to find that he had enjoyed himself. Maybe, Steve _had_ become his friend. Maybe they had become friends without them meaning to.

But then, if Steve was his friend now in the real sense of the term, then wouldn’t he be violating one of his own cardinal rules if they were to go through with his incentive after thirty days? Then again, they _were_ barely friends when the Celibacy Challenge was issued, so that had to count for something, right?

Tony knew he was in some kind of slippery slope with his reasoning. But he staunchly held on to it. He couldn’t believe he was becoming conflicted over this now— _now_ , when he was already halfway through a challenge he never, in his wildest dreams, thought he could pull off.

No, but it was _because_ he and Steve have become friends that nothing about the challenge or the subsequent incentive should change. Tony was going to prove all the naysayers wrong by finishing his Celibacy Challenge, and he was going to help Steve get his confidence back, short of coaxing the man out of his self-conscious shell. And both of them would get what they wanted.

“I’m OK, Steve,” Tony calmly reassured, like no burning conflict about Steve, about the challenge and the incentive, about their growing closeness, about _all of it_ had happened at all.


	11. DAYS 17 - 19

“Tony… what exactly am I eating?”

“That’s pufferfish. It’s believed to be highly poisonous and can be deadly when prepared incorrectly, but—hey—that’s why we’re here in an expensive Japanese restaurant which also happens to be a favorite of mine…you can stop looking like a deer in headlights, Rogers. I don’t hate you that much to want you keeling over, dead, in the middle of one of my fave restos—that would be bad for business. I just thought you might want to try the place for the food and the crowd. Look to your eleven o’clock—how about her in the periwinkle blue dress? She’s cute.”

“She’s _pregnant_ , Tony. And that’s probably her husband she’s eating with. Unless I’m asking for bodily harm, I can’t come up to their table to try flirting with her!”

“Well, you gotta pick _someone_ to flirt with! You need to practice. That’s one of the reasons why we’re having dinner here—because the crowd is _great_. Lots of warm-blooded, eager and willing-to-experiment females to choose from.”

“Another reason being you like it here for the poisonous and unreasonably expensive food, right?”

“Seeing as we let the monumental Day 15 pass us by, I owe it to myself to celebrate this _Day 17_ of my month-long toil. And don’t exaggerate; the pufferfish is only _believed_ to be poisonous and the price of the food is hardly unreasonable—you get value for money. How about that group of three over by the painting of Mt. Fuji? You get three in one fell swoop.”

“Why do I even have to do this? Bucky always said I’m crap at flirting. I’d just be humiliated.”

“You’re doing it again, expecting to fail even before you’ve tried. How else can you learn something new if you don’t try first?”

“OK—all right, I will try…” Resolute.

“Go get ‘em, Tiger!”

One step, two steps, three. Sudden change of heart. “I can’t do it, Tony. I can’t. What do I even _say_ to them?”

“A _Hello_ would be nice to begin with. Come on, Steve. You’re a full grown, hot-blooded male about to approach a table of gorgeous women—just go with the first thing that comes out of your mouth. Get at least one of them to give you their number, and that’s it—hard part’s over. Go on, get!”

-0-0-0-

“Nice! You got a number—see, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Are you kidding?! My hands were clammy, like, the entire damn time!”

“But you got them laughing, and you got at least one of them intrigued enough to give you their number…”

“They laughed because I was so hilariously awkward. Oh my God, please don’t make me do that again. I just might hurl the super-expensive pufferfish the next time.”

“So, which one gave you their number?”

“The one who’s facing away from us, the brunette. _Maya Hansen_. Says here on the tissue with her number on it…”

“Maya… _Hansen_ , you said?”

“Yeah.”

“Sh…it—“

“Don’t tell me, you know her?”

“Yeah, I know her—“

“Which means the same thing as you’ve had sex with her—because with you knowing and screwing are just about synonymous—“

“Hey, hey, hey! What are you shredding her number for?! You still gotta call her back, man, she showed interest in you!”

“No more of your cast-offs, Tony, please. That thing with Maggie was one time too many. I don’t want to have it hanging over my head, whenever I’m with someone you’ve been with before, how I have no hope of comparing to the likes of you.”

“Then don’t. Compare yourself to me, I mean! You’re the _only one_ thinking that, Steve. Maggie didn’t think it and Maya probably won’t also. You have to let this go. ‘Cause if you make _‘had not had sex with Tony Stark’_ a qualification for dating a woman—or _anyone_ , for that matter, you’d be looking for a long time, _out of state_ , and there goes your chances of moving on from your ex.”

“Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that.”    

-0-0-0-

“Oh wow… Lt. Col. Rhodes… I can’t say how happy I am to finally meet you in person, Sir. Steve Rogers, former Captain in the army, last detailed in Istanbul, Turkey.”

“It is my pleasure to meet you, Steve—can I call you Steve?”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Please. None of these formalities. Rhodey is fine. Tony’s mentioned you a fair few times. I’ve wanted to be introduced to the man who had come up with a way to keep Tony from contracting STDs for the next thirty days. Thank you for that, by the way.”

“Well, really… it’s—it’s nothing… The real reason for the challenge is somewhat less altruistic than that, I have to admit.”

“Regardless, man. I’ve been wanting to find a way to get Tony off this self-destructive habit of his, and I must say your way is so damn inspired, it deserves some kind of commendation. I’m sure you’ve gotten the same feedback from Pepper.”

“It’s so damn inspired you put in money down for Day 1, sour patch, fucking _Day 1_. And you, boys, do realize I _am_ sitting here, listening to you gossip about _me_ , right?”

“Don’t mind him. Tony’s just bitter that someone’s finally got the better of him. So, Steve…how long ago has it been since you were discharged from the army?”

“Pushing seven years now, Si—uh—Rhodey.”

“How’s civilian life treating you then?”

“Can’t complain. Hey—it’s while I’m a civilian that I get to meet one of the rock stars of the Air Force and my long-time idol, which is _you_ , by the way. Really, I cannot begin to tell you how completely awesome it is to meet you. My friend, Bucky, and I follow your career with the Air Force. The operations you led in Afghanistan, Madripoor and that air rescue in Nepal during the earthquake—oh man, Bucky’s eyes would bug out, sitting in front of you. We still like pulling your aerial moves on _Crimson Skies_ in the Xbox.”

“Careful Steve, you’re _this_ close to wetting yourself already. Excitable is not the impression you would want to leave on your idol— _Rhodey, the Air Force Rock Star_ —now, would you?”

“Jealous much, Stark? What—you’ve monopolized Steve’s attention long enough. You can’t blame him for seeking out better company, at this point. Remind me again, Steve, what day is the challenge at now? Maybe, _that’s_ why Tony’s getting crabby.”

“We’re at Day 18 already. And he’s no crabbier now than Day 1, actually. Guess that just means he’s naturally crabby.”

“Oh he is—“

“—I’m not _crabby_ ; I’m a ray of fucking sunshine! But you know what makes _me_ crabby? It’s when you actually flirt with _Rhodey_ more effectively than with any of the women we’ve set you up with—now, what’s up with _that_?!”

-0-0-0-

“I guess, to say that you and Rhodey hit it off quite well is an understatement,” Tony observed, looking from side to side as he flicked the signal light on his car and made a turn from one busy midtown thoroughfare to another. “For a moment there, I thought you were going to ask him to move in with you or something. That would’ve taken a lot of creative explaining to his fiancée.”

“But how coincidental is that, really, that your best friend happens to be the guy that Bucky and I have heard so much about and always admired? I mean, who would’ve thought, right?” Steve asked, angling his body on the front passenger seat to be able to watch Tony’s reaction.

They were off on another one of Tony’s post-work day dinner jaunts, and as it was a Friday, the engineer-businessman insisted on going to one of his favorite restaurants again where they were sure to get a table instead of braving the dinner crowd in one of Steve’s dining haunts. Concerned, though, Steve may be about spending hundreds of dollars again for a meal, he acceded that Tony had a point. He just wished that Tony wouldn’t ask Steve to pay him back for these atrocious meals down the road or Steve was going to have to hock everything he owned just to be able to pay his neighbor.

“Why, because it would’ve never crossed _anyone’s_ mind that a low-life sexual predator like me could be friends with a national icon like Rhodey?” Tony kidded with a lip-sided grin, stealing a glance at Steve.

“I didn’t say that,” denied Steve with a roll of his eyes.

“But you were _thinking_ it,” pointed Tony out, not wanting to let go of the subject.

Steve shook his head with a skeptical smile. Trust Tony to always point out Steve’s first impression of him which had fueled this whole Celibacy Challenge to begin with. “This isn’t supposed to be my problem anymore if you can’t let that _‘sleaze comment’_ go, Tony.”

“So what—I’m no longer a sleaze, am I? My winning personality has won you over?”

“I didn’t say _that_ ,” denied Steve again, fighting to tamp down a smile. His impression of Tony as a sleazy sex predator has changed, true, but he recognized that there was still so much he didn’t know about the engineer. Which made the early stages of a warm, fuzzy feeling in his stomach whenever he was with Tony all the more bizarre. He pushed it from the forefront of his mind, chalking it up to nothing more than the happy feeling of beginning to think of Tony as a close friend and not just a neighbor-acquaintance.

Tony _‘hmph’_ ed like an overdramatic diva with a purse of his lips that should look out-of-place with his Van Dyke, but on Tony, actually added to the man’s charm, much to Steve’s chagrin.

“When are you going to tell Bucky that you’ve met Rhodey? We should schedule something, the four of us. I, for one, would love to see Bucky’s reaction to meeting Rhodey, and if it’s anywhere near as amusing as yours, then he won’t hear the end of it from me,” Tony said with a chuckle, pulling up in the valet slot in front of the Radisson Martinique.

“I haven’t told him yet. I’d prefer to catch him unawares, like what you did to me. It would make for a more interesting reaction. And you’re right, we should definitely set something up,” Steve agreed then, realizing where they were exactly, said, “Jesus, is this where we’re eating tonight?”

“Hey—I don’t call you out when we go to hole-in-the-wall establishments, all right? Don’t be an ass,” Tony reminded him with another huff before he pushed the driver’s side door open to get out of the car.

“ _I’m_ being an ass?” Steve asked, following Tony out of the car.

“This is a perfectly respectable establishment—“

“—yes, like that time you dragged me along to a _strip club_ —“

“—what?! That was _one_ time, Steve! And that wasn’t even my fault. That was Pepper’s—“

“—and had me trying to pick girls up in a Japanese restaurant—“

“Steve?” A familiar voice piped up from behind Steve as the latter dogged Tony’s steps into the hotel lobby. It was a voice that became only too familiar to him in the three years they were together until two years ago when Steve had found out, in the worst way, that he was being taken for a fool by the woman he had been ready to ask to marry him and to spend the rest of his life with.

Steve froze in his steps, turned on his heels, and found himself staring into the stormy-blue eyes of his ex-girlfriend, Sharon Carter. “Sharon…”

She was still the same willowy and poised lady who, beneath the creamy skin and delicate limbs, hid the unexpected strength of a taekwondo black belter and archery aficionado. Her blonde hair was in an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck. She looked groomed to take on the world in an expensive-looking rose-gold cocktail dress and matching sling-backs that accentuated her figure and her long legs, while she was arm-in-arm with a slightly-built blonde man in a Tom Ford three-button gray suit and leather shoes, whom Steve knew was the same man she had cheated on him with: her boss in the pharmaceutical company she worked in, Everett Ross.

Of all the days and of all the places to run into his ex and her new beau, it had to be today when Steve was wearing a gray V-necked sweater, his oldest pair of mud-brown khaki trousers and Chuck Taylors outside the lobby of the _Radisson Martinique_. Steve could almost read that asshole Ross’ thoughts in those judgmental watery gray eyes of his: that Sharon must have been a bleeding heart saint to have dated a tasteless hobo!

“I—uh—wasn’t expecting to see you here,” she said. That was probably why Steve had never run into Sharon until now. Because Steve had never been much for places like the Radisson Martinique while Sharon and her new beau probably frequented places like this every night for dinner before they went home in their Madison Avenue penthouse condo or something.

Steve had the right mind to bolt now and head straight home instead of enduring the rest of the night, breathing the same air as Sharon and the man she had left Steve for.

God—she was still so radiantly beautiful, though…

“Steve, what are you still doing out he—“ Tony loudly protested, obviously pissed at having to retrace his steps because Steve had fallen behind, but he abruptly ended whatever slight he was going to throw when he realized what was keeping Steve. “Oh—hello…”

Steve cleared his throat and tried to gather himself to introduce Tony. He didn’t want to clue Sharon in on how affected he really was, seeing her—them—there. “Uh… Tony, this is Sharon Carter and her…um…” God, he couldn’t even say who the guy was! How was he supposed to introduce the asswipe now _—‘the sonofabitch that the woman I loved cheated on me for’_?!

“I’m Ms. Carter’s fiancé, Everett Ross,” the shithead said in that wheezy voice of his, extending his small hand to Tony for a handshake.

Fucking fiancé. Steve should’ve had the dickface marry his _fist_ when he had the chance…

“And Sharon and…um, well—this is Tony. Tony Stark,” Steve hurriedly introduced, fighting down the lump that had formed in his throat, making it difficult for him to breathe.

Tony offered the couple a thousand-watt smile. “Hello Sharon…and Everett. It’s an absolute pleasure to meet you,” he greeted enthusiastically, jovially pumping Everett’s hand. “Steve has told me about you—both of you, of course.”

“He has?” Sharon asked, taken aback.

“Of course! Steve tells me _everything_ ,” Tony boasted with a sultry smile directed at Steve, snaking an arm around his waist. “Isn’t that what people in a committed relationship are supposed to do?”

“ _Stark_ … How are you related to the Stark who owns _Stark Industries_?—“ The blonde waste-of-space spoke, curious, which, of course, he would be. Because here was a guy who was potentially richer, more powerful and more connected than him. He must be threatened, if not outrightly intimidated by the prospect of Tony being the Stark of _Stark Industries_ fame.

For once since Steve knew Tony, he actually _wanted_ the engineer to rub it in the face of the pube-breath Ross who the fuck _Tony Stark_ was.

Sharon, for her part, was obviously disturbed at Tony’s last statement that she just _itched_ to ask Steve about it, which the latter, though himself surprised at what Tony was trying to pull, found hilarious.

“I am _the_ Stark who owns _Stark Industries_ , actually,” admitted Tony, the dazzling smile still on his handsome face. “And Steve’s _boyfriend_ , just in case that wasn’t clear,” he confidently declared, entwining his fingers with Steve’s. Then, he turned to the blonde again and said, short of pouting, “we must really get inside because I’m starving.” There was a calculating tinge to his warm brown eyes, however, that spoke silently to Steve to just go along with whatever he was cooking up.

“It was nice to run into you but you must excuse us,” said Tony to the other couple, sultry smile back on his face as he began to walk away from Sharon and the blonde midget-in-a-suit, slightly tugging on Steve.

“What the ever-loving _fuck_ was that, Stark?” Steve hissed through his teeth as they went through the hotel’s automatic glass doors.

“Watch your language, Rogers. And, by the way, that was me trying to save what little’s left of your pride,” Tony countered, thunderously. “ _Jesus_ —you should have seen your face out there while in front of them. You looked like a kicked dog still yearning to be thrown a bone by someone who’s obviously moved on to a better pet. You do not, and I repeat, _do not_ look like that at your ex who cheated on and left you two years ago! Where is your self-respect? God… _damn_!”

“I haven’t seen her in _two years_ , and I wasn’t expecting to see her here tonight! What was I supposed to do?!” Steve complained, stuffing his hands in the front pockets of his trousers to keep Tony from seeing them clenched and trembling. Who would’ve thought that after two long years, seeing Sharon would still have this effect on him?

“For starters— _not_ look like you still miss her. Like—what—it was your fault that you broke up? That woman fucking _cheated_ on you with that _ass-clown_ in a poser of a suit, no doubt, and the last thing you want to do is look _defeated_ and _lost_ in front of them!” Tony criticized with a loud ‘tsk’. “You were bound to run into each other. It was only a matter of time. Do you think it’s any skin of her back to see you still half-beating yourself up over how your relationship with her had ended? Let me tell you that she fucking couldn’t care less, and do you know why?”

Steve just shrugged and averted his eyes away from Tony.

“Because she already has a Harry Winston that could sink the fucking Titanic for a second time on her duplicitous ring finger while you’re still allowing her to _cuckold_ you all over again—“

“OK, OK, OK—I get it, all right?!” Steve protested, palming his face in dismay. “I shouldn’t have let her faze me like that. I shouldn’t have clued her in about the pain I was still feeling about what she’d done to us. I could’ve handled that better… But I still don’t get why you had to tell them you were my _boyfriend_ , Tony,” grumbled the blonde; it was his turn to assume a thunderous expression.

“She’s obviously moved on and so can you. Did you see her face as you were rambling to introduce us to each other? She looked at you with such _pity_ , it _pissed_ me off. She obviously thought you were still hung up on her and that was what was making you lose your composure. So I had to do something to disabuse her of that,” explained Tony, merely nodding at the receptionist of the hotel restaurant where, apparently, they would be eating. He didn’t even have to lose his stride as he led a closely-following Steve to one of the place’s prime tables.

“That’s where your plan gets snagged on an unmistakable flaw—because I’m _not gay_ , Tony. And Sharon knows that. So there’s no way that I’m really dating you. Which means, it’s all just a pathetic excuse to put a smokescreen on what I’m still obviously feeling for her,” pointed Steve out, dragging a plush seat from under the table and plopping on it dejectedly.

“And you have no right to change your sexual preferences in the two years since she had last seen you?” Tony argued, plucking a menu from the center of the table to see what would be interesting to eat.

“So what—I just… _turned gay_ in the span of two years, is that it? A strapping guy with no previous homosexual or even bisexual tendencies and who’d had a three-year relationship with a woman just suddenly turns queer and is now dating a person who would never, in a hundred years, be mistaken for a female. Very convincing, if I may say so myself,” retorted Steve, leaning back on his seat and crossing his arms over his expansive chest in a sulk.

“You’re not dating just _anyone_ , are you? You’re dating _me_ , at least that’s our story; that’s what they think. And I don’t know if you’ve _met_ me, but I can definitely turn the burliest, most hetero guy queer if I put my mind to it,” Tony self-assuredly said, flicking the tip of his tongue to lick the corner of his lips with an accompanying smoldering look at Steve, that in spite of himself, couldn’t help but shiver at that. Oh he definitely knew about this ability of Tony’s, all right.

“Bit bigheaded of you, isn’t it?” Steve observed with a sardonic chortle, then, noticing the sudden tension in the expression on Tony’s face and the angles of his limbs, turned towards the entrance of the restaurant to see Sharon and her dickwad fiancé enter. “Shit.” Sharon had seen them, too, and awkwardly angled her head away from where he and Tony were seated.

“Like I said, this is bound to happen, sooner or later,” piped Tony up, intruding into Steve’s self-flagellating thoughts. “So… do you want to leave? ‘Cause if we’re tucking tail and running, we better do so now before we order,” offered Tony, but he was still pointedly turning the pages of the restaurant menu.

“Can we?” Steve practically begged. He didn’t think he could chew his food properly and digest it with Sharon and that shitpile within yelling distance.

“Oh we can, but then what would that look like to _them_? That you can’t even be civil enough to handle being in the same room with them, which means you still bear some sort of grudge and you haven’t moved on from what they’ve done to you,” the engineer described. “Then, who’s the _loser_ in that scenario? Who do you think?”

“What—so I’ll have to suffer indigestion if it means winning the battle of wills against Sharon and that dickface?”

“You know the answer to that question. And in case you don’t, I have a solution for you: ask yourself this— _what would Sam and Bucky do_?” Tony asked with an imperial raise of his eyebrow.

He had, of course, hit a nerve by name-dropping Steve’s friends who had practically pulled him out of the throes of depression with great difficulty, and supported him, and looked out for him through the pain of getting over his heartbreak. Steve’s friends have been pestering him to look Sharon in the eye, once and for all. Then maybe, after two long years, he could finally be able to move on.

“Fine,” Steve acceded, clenching his jaw. “We’re staying. But what happens now? You told them that we’re supposed to be in some kind of relationship…”

“As I see it, if you really want to convince your ex and her new beau that you hold no grudges, that you’ve truly moved on and couldn’t care less about them being all lovey-dovey and engaged, you can go along with the story that I’m your new boyfriend and we try to outdo them in the sweetness department,” suggested Tony by way of solution, reaching for Steve’s hand on the table and entangling his fingers with the blonde’s.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Tony,” disagreed Steve, retracting his hand from the table and clenching it on his lap.

“Is the idea of being my pretend-boyfriend for one night really that distasteful for you?” Tony jested, his mouth was in a teasing grin but there was something decidedly harder to read in his brown doe eyes.

“It’s not that. It’s just…” Steve started chewing on his bottom lip with an inward groan. Apart from not being as good an actor as Tony probably was when it came to make-believe intimacy, Steve was actually daunted that he’d end up believing the lie himself and be even more attracted to Tony than he knew he already was. And if that wasn’t even more problematic than his current battle of wills with his ex, he didn’t know what was. “I’d be awkward at it; I’d probably give our ruse away than convince them.”

“Don’t worry your pretty face about that; I’ll talk you through it,” Tony said, fully on-board with the plan of convincing Sharon and fart-breath that they really were a couple. “So… how about a little PDA?” Tony invited, tapping the tabletop with his index and middle fingers, which was Steve’s signal to place his hand again where Tony could reach for it to entwine their fingers together.

“Actually,” Steve said, shifting in his seat. “This is not enough PDA. If we want to convince Sharon, particularly,” continued Steve, standing up and dragging his seat closer to Tony’s left side until they were both in each other’s personal space. So close, that Steve could see the flecks of green in Tony’s hypnotic brown irises. “We have to be closer, because she knows that I’m a touchy-feely person. And we’ve always eaten side by side rather than facing each other. Every time.”

“OK, cool. Whatever works for you, stud,” Tony said, their faces dangerously close to each other. Tony, then, moved to whisper something against the shell of Steve’s ear, sending shivers down his spine, “pretend I’m whispering sweet nothings in your ear. Grin like we’ve got a secret and you’re counting the minutes until we go home where you will have your wicked way with me.”

“Wouldn’t that be a bit coquettish, though?” Steve asked, but trying his best to school his face as Tony instructed. “Sharon knows I’m crap at flirting. Let’s say you have the sex appeal to turn me gay, but me getting suddenly good at flirting is pushing it, Tony.” It was Steve’s turn to whisper in Tony’s ear.

“You might be crap at flirting,” Tony smolderingly gazed at Steve through the thick curtain of his dark brown eyelashes, biting his bottom lip. “But _I’m_ not,” he finished with a playful smile, which made Steve blush.

“Nice touch, stud. You blush so nicely,” complimented the engineer, putting his face dangerously close to Steve’s again.

“Can we talk about something else, so I don’t have to overthink if I’m being enough of a doting boyfriend?” Steve asked, plastering his arm flush against Tony’s. Any closer and Tony might as well sit on his lap.

“Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“What about how you and Rhodey met?”  

Tony started to regale him with stories from his and Rhodey’s time in MIT, the two’s more notable adventures all throughout university and after. They were only interrupted with a member of the wait staff getting their orders and, thereafter, serving their dinner orders.

Steve thought that Tony was such an animated storyteller that he hardly noticed any time passing at all, apart from the food before them changing from appetizer, to soup, to main course. He found himself laughing at the punch lines and quite engaged in the stories he was being told. He asked questions and issued comments of his own that also, surprisingly, made Tony laugh.

The restaurant specialized in European cuisine so it was very savory, saucy and appetizing—both visually and gastronomically. The ambience would have impressed Steve, too, had Sharon and her booger-breath of a fiancé not been there to ruin Steve’s enjoyment. Then again, Steve had not had the time nor the fortitude to seek out where exactly in the restaurant the two sat since Tony started telling him distracting stories about him and Rhodey.

It was while Tony was telling him the story of how Rhodey met his fiancée, Carol Danvers, over dessert of several slices of cake, that the engineer brushed something from the corner of Steve’s mouth. “You had something on the corner of your mouth,” Tony said, matter-of-factly. And their heads were very close together again that Steve could’ve kissed Tony if he’d wanted to.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment, too, and Steve was aware of nothing else but the engineer’s warm brown eyes and slightly parted lips. This _was_ why Steve was apprehensive to indulge Tony’s plan for a one-night-only pretend-relationship. Because he was afraid of being so carried away, he’d start to confuse what was real and what was pretend, and what he needed to do for the sake of appearances and what he wanted to do to sate his own desires.

“Ross is getting the check; they’re leaving,” Tony reported, breaking the magic of the moment. Steve didn’t want to have to shift in his seat to see for himself. He stubbornly kept his eyes on his own companion for the night.

He had kept a semblance of composure despite seeing Sharon and the man she had cheated on Steve with after two years. He almost had a breakdown, but because of Tony, it didn’t go any further than that. Seeing Sharon _had_ indeed been cathartic, and he knew he wouldn’t have been able to get through this night without Tony. He hated to admit it but he owed Tony again.

Steve bridged the small gap between him and Tony, and planted a soft kiss against the engineer’s cheek, right by the corner of his lips. “For an explosive clincher…” Steve murmured against Tony’s cheek. “Thank you, Tony. I never would have made it through this night if you weren’t here.”

The engineer, for his part, craned his neck to plant his lips on Steve’s temple, too, right by the blonde’s eyebrow. It was unexpectedly sweet; something that Steve never thought someone as sexual as Tony could accomplish. “You _are_ welcome, neighbor. Glad to be of help. They’re getting up from the table already. Sharon is looking this way.”

“Hmmm,” Steve replied, more focused on the cake slice he was attacking and the warmth of Tony’s thigh against his under the table.

“Do you think we’ve convinced _her_ , at least?” Tony asked, forking a different cake slice himself.

“Actually, I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore if she’s convinced or not,” shrugged Steve. Maybe, after two long years, he was finally free of any hang-ups he still nurtured for his ex. “She and her dickwad of a fiancé can both suck it, for all I care.”

Tony grinned good-naturedly, bumping his shoulder against Steve’s, and lauded, “that’s the spirit!”


	12. DAYS 20 - 21

“Surprise! Happy Birthday!”

Tony felt an odd satisfaction, seeing their neighbor, Scott Lang’s, look of utter astonishment at this unexpected birthday surprise party that had been arranged mostly by Phil and Jane, but Steve and Clint helped out, too, especially with regard to running errands.

The day had started out early for Steve whose good mood from last night carried over to that morning as he ran errand after errand in connection with the planned surprise party for Scott. He gave Tony intermittent knocks in the course of the day, mostly to ask for tools—mounting tape, a hammer, a staple gun, a nail gun, a multi-gauge wrench—that Tony, driven by curiosity, had asked once if they were perhaps building a bunker somewhere.

It was around five in the afternoon when Steve had given him another knock to invite him downstairs to hide out in Scott’s apartment and lie in wait to surprise him. Tony, still curious about his other neighbors in the apartment building after the short preview provided by the tenants’ meeting, indulged the invitation and went downstairs with Steve.

And he was glad that he did. Because the fellowship _was_ kinda fun, he had to admit. It was a far cry from his relationships with his previous neighbors in his old apartments. These people were less stuck up and were more substantial conversationalists anyway, so Tony guessed it could only be for the better that he was establishing more meaningful associations this time around.

Scott’s friends—Kurt, Dave and Luis, who worked with him in the city’s power transmission department were also there to add riot to their festivities since the three brought about a truckload of booze that all the guests would only be able to finish if they drink non-stop for a week. Scott’s daughter, Cassie, his ex-wife, Maggie and her current husband, Paxton, who was a police officer, attended as well.

Tony must have been on his seventh paper cup of Dave’s signature mixed drink, which he called _The Pile driver_ , when Scott sidled up to him to ask how he was enjoying the party. “Cassie seems to take a liking to you. She’s not usually so accommodating of people she’s meeting for the first time—with the exception of Steve.”

“Steve seems like everyone’s exception, really,” observed Tony, taking a deep swig of his beverage. “Your daughter probably only likes me because I told her all the cheat codes in the game she’s playing in her PSP. She now holds the high score of all time,” informed Tony with a shit-eating grin at Scott who shook his head, half-amused.

It was after a couple of minutes of silent observation of the rest of the guests when Tony spoke again: “how often does Cassie stay with you here?”

“I usually get her every other weekend unless I have to work, and on weekdays, I pick her up from school and take her to her mom’s every Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s not an ideal set-up with the divorce and all, but it could’ve been worse,” Steve narrated. “I didn’t use to get along with Paxton when he and Maggie were still trying to work out the kinks. But we all came to an understanding that we have to find a common ground for Cassie’s benefit.”

“Isn’t it awkward though, sharing laughs and a couple of beers with the new husband of your ex-wife?” Tony was curious.

“It’s awkward until it isn’t. I love Cassie and I’m willing to do anything that would make life easier for her. I still love Maggie and the divorce _was_ my fault, so I also don’t want to make this hard for her. Paxton’s also a good guy, and he takes care of Cassie and Maggie very well, so, you know—I’ve always said there are conventional families and then there’s _our_ family, but that doesn’t mean we love each other any less,” explained Scott, taking intermittent swigs of his beer.

“But the divorce must have really put you off from the prospect of relationships, right? Like—maybe—one failed relationship is more than enough for a lifetime…” Tony pointed out, conversationally.

Scott, scratching his temple, answered, “it didn’t, really. I mean, if Maggie and Paxton found each other—and those two are undeniably compatible—means there’s still someone out there who can get my kind of crazy, you know.

“I have a question for _you_ , though, Tony,” Scott segued, disposing of his empty beer bottle and popping the cap off a new one. “I’ve been noticing that you and Steve are always together, and I don’t mean to pry. But what’s up with that? Are you guys dating? Because I never pegged Steve to be the type to bat for the other team.”   

“That’s something he likes pointing out to me, actually,” admitted Tony with a snort. “And _no_ , we’re not dating. I _am_ trying to help him get his dating legs back by giving him pointers, and that’s the reason why we’re always together,” Tony cleared the air with Scott.

“So you know about the god-awful stunt that his long-time girlfriend pulled, huh?” Scott asked, shaking his head. “Now that girl…was a piece of work. It’s a good thing, what you’re doing. Goodness knows we could use one more pair of hands to haul Steve out of his funk. Steve’s good people; he really didn’t deserve the deal with his girlfriend,” Scott said, nodding towards where Steve was standing close to Clint. It looked like those two were also having some kind of heart-to-heart.

“Yeah,” Tony murmured, absent-mindedly. If Scott’s take on things was meant to make Tony feel guilty for what he had strong-armed Steve into agreeing to, it fucking worked. He didn’t know why it made him feel guilty when Steve had also cuckolded him into the Celibacy Challenge to begin with. But Steve being everyone’s favorite nice boy-next-door made Tony think _he_ was corrupting the blonde’s _purity_ or something.

“Are we at a _party_ or what? Why are all of you, boys, brooding in the secluded corners?” Jane complained, inserting herself like an Energizer bunny between Tony and Scott to poke them in the sides. “We should play a game or something. What do you think, Wanda? What game should we play?” Jane asked the red-haired girl, Wanda, who was clad in a Bohemian skirt that was unusually paired with a black statement shirt that read: _I need something that’s more than coffee but less than cocaine._

“Well, we look like a pretty progressive crowd, so what do you say to playing some Suck ‘n Blow?” Wanda suggested with a small wink directed at Tony. “With some modifications just to spice things up.”

And so it transpired that Jane and Wanda had them all standing in the empty patch of floor to play the modified Suck ‘n Blow, with Scott’s friends, Luis and Kurt volunteering to draw the category to determine who they were supposed to pass the card to next and spot them for game violations. Jane placed a playing card on her lips, and Luis drew a ballot from a bowl to begin play.

“First category: someone you think is stylish,” recited Luis. And Jane sucked the card, walked towards Wanda and blew the card onto the redhead’s lips. For her part, Wanda sucked and blew the card to Phil, who in turn, passed it along to Scott, who transferred the card to Maggie, then to Paxton who accidentally dropped it before he could take a step towards the person he was intending to pass the card to.

There was a chorus of dismayed _aaaws_ as Paxton, sportingly, took a seat and reclaimed his beverage cup.

“Second category: someone you think is sweet,” announced Kurt, and since it was Maggie who last passed the card successfully, the round started with her. She passed the card to Phil, who passed it along to Jane, who passed it to Steve—and this was where things started to really get interesting—which Steve passed to _Tony_. Tony was rendered incoherent that he momentarily forgot what the category was and then couldn’t think of the person he should pass the card to. He just made a split second decision to pass it to Scott, who then passed it to Clint, then to Wanda, then to her brother Pietro who got too giddy that he prematurely blew on the card, losing that round.

Tony was disconcerted, to say the least. So, Rogers thought he was sweet, huh? The engineer didn’t know what to make of that. He had never thought himself sweet before nor had he been described by any of his bed partners that way. Sensual, yes. Sexy, sure. Stunning, yup. But _sweet_? It was unprecedented. He started to feel excited for the next category, though, for he’d sworn to himself to grant Steve the self-same shock that the blonde had given him.

“Third category: someone you think is sexy,” Luis read from the drawn piece of paper. Wanda started the round, and she passed the card along to Clint, who passed it on to Phil, who almost dropped it but did a nice save to pass it on to Jane.

Tony thought Jane was going to pass the card either to her own husband or to Steve and Tony would have already lost the chance for some kind of payback to his floor mate, but he was pleasantly surprised when Jane made a beeline for him. Tony sucked the card from Jane, fighting off a smile, then he went to Steve and cupped the latter’s face, intending to blow the card to Steve’s waiting lips, but Tony timed it so that the card slid off his mouth at the last possible moment and his lips connected with Steve’s.

Even if the contact only lasted as long as a heartbeat, the delicious way that Steve’s eyes went wide made that brief and stolen contact _and_ losing the round so, _so_ worth it.

There was hushed silence but a smattering of secret smiles among the party attendees. Jane seemed ready to squeal and Phil was trying to fight off a wide toothy smile. But it was Clint who broke the silence with a loud catcall and, in a sing-song voice, began, “Steve and Tony, sitting in a tree—K—I—S—S—“

Steve gave Clint a stare that could’ve corroded metal.

“Whoops,” Tony said with the slightest quirk to the corners of his lips. “I guess I’m out then.” Tony retrieved his paper cup filled to the brim of _The Pile driver_ and hid his shit-eating smile behind its rim.

Tony had already pointed it out once before, but Steve really did blush quite fetchingly. _And_ he was pretty good at Suck ‘n Blow, too, if the next five rounds were anything to go by. The rounds went by quickly, eliminating Dave, Thor, Scott, Phil and Maggie in quick succession until all that remained in play were Clint, Jane, Steve and Wanda.

“Ninth category: someone you think is sassy,” Luis announced, adding, “maybe after this, if no one gets eliminated, we can play something else?”

“It should be a game that will make us drink; we do have nearly a whole container van’s worth of liquor that we haven’t even made a dent in yet,” Kurt suggested just as Jane began the round, who passed the card on to Clint, who, in turn, passed it along to Steve.

Before Steve could pass the card along to Wanda, though, he made the mistake of meeting Tony’s eye just as Tony was finishing off his nth paper cup of _The Pile driver_ and smacking his lips. In Tony’s defense, that was completely inadvertent, but it was enough to distract Steve’s focus and the card fell, limp, from his lips. Tony smirked; Steve blushed again; and Clint crowed in victory while Jane and Wanda seconded Kurt’s earlier suggestion to move on to a new game.

The group decided to play In-Between, next, using a standard deck but without the face cards. Each player was supposed to be dealt two cards, and the first to announce _Call_ would be first to draw a third card from the draw pile. The player was supposed to announce their stakes—which in their game would entail a number of tequila shots. The current player should also show their hand, and if the third card from the draw pile happened to be one that was in-between the values of the player’s hand, the player was safe and they didn’t have to drink. If their third card was outside of range, however, the player was supposed to drink the number of tequila shots corresponding to their stakes. Should the player happen to be dealt two cards of the same value, they were supposed to Call _Higher_ or _Lower_ , and if their third card corresponded to the player’s call, they were safe, too. If not, they were supposed to drink, depending on their stakes. If the range of the player’s current hand was too narrow or they were just too chicken to _Call_ , they _could_ _Fold_. But the penalty would be that whatever stakes were not drunk at the end of the hand would be polished off by everyone who’d _Folded_.

The fun part of it was when other players raised the stakes of the current player, especially if the range provided by the current player’s pair of cards was narrow but the player refused to _Fold_. Case in point was Tony’s current hand of three of hearts and six of clubs. Tony called three shots, which he was confident he didn’t have to drink himself because he had been getting lucky with his third card for the past three rounds even with the narrow range of his hands.

“I raise you _three_ more shots, Tony,” Clint challenged. “You can’t always be lucky, you sonofabitch.” Clint already sounded like he was slurring his words, what with his past three hands where he always had to drink his stakes of at least two shots.

Jane took it upon herself to be the dealer since she didn’t want to be soused, but then again, Thor was already soused enough for the both of them. “I raise you four more shots, Anthony! I completely agree with Clinton!” Thor boomed.

“Raise you two more, too—you need to catch up with the rest of us, buddy,” Paxton called, raising a shot glass to mock-toast Tony with.

“Fine—conspire against me, why don’t you? But I am confident that I’ll have the last laugh,” Tony bragged, nodding to Jane to reveal his third card.

Tony’s third card was a seven of diamonds.

And Clint positively howled in glee while the rest cheered Tony on as he methodically went through the twelve shots of tequila, one after the other, with a murderous expression on his face. His neighbors were all assholes and sore losers.

The game was noisy, fun and engaging. By the fourth hand, none of them could claim sobriety, not even prim and proper Steve, who was again that fetching shade of pink in the face.

By half past midnight, most of the guests had already staggered out of Scott’s apartment with blissed out-drunk smiles on their faces, thanks and parting greetings of Happy Birthday on their lips. Phil kept on thanking everyone; Clint was already singing some Katy Perry at the top of his voice as he left with his floor mates, Wanda and Pietro, with all three of them leaning against each other while climbing the stairs. Paxton and Maggie, as well as Scott’s friends, were staying the night over at Scott’s since they were all in no condition to drive or commute to their respective homes.

Jane was supporting Thor with her small frame as they staggered out to get to their apartment opposite Scott’s—it was a good thing they didn’t have any stairs to climb because Jane would’ve been overwhelmed by her husband’s meaty frame.

“Are y’sure you don’ need help wi’him?” Tony slurred through his words, nodding towards a swaying Thor, who was being propped up only by his wife’s small frame in the small third floor hallway.

“Would I have married this big lug if I can’t handle him? Don’t worry about me,” Jane assured, but nodding towards Steve who was clinging to Scott’s doorjamb to keep him from sliding to the floor, continued, “I’m more worried about Steve, though. Can you help each other up the stairs, Tony?”

“Yeah, ‘course—don’ worry ‘bout us! I’ve driv’n my car drunk’r b’fore…” Tony felt like his tongue was too big for his mouth. “I got ‘im.”

“Good night, Stark! I had loads of fun hanging out with you, boys, tonight,” Jane said, smiling wide and hustling her husband towards their door.

“C’mon, you,” Tony said, pulling Steve off the doorjamb. “Let’s go h’me…”

They lumbered up the two flights of stairs, swaying, nearly crawling and at times, using each other as crutches. It felt forever until they were both before Steve’s apartment door. It took another eternity until Steve was able to wrestle his door open and the two entered like zombies into the blonde’s place.

“No, no, nope—you’re not s’pposed to sleep there, you,” Tony pulled at Steve’s beefy frame when the latter had collapsed, ass in the wind and face plastered on the seat, on his living room couch.

Steve forced an eye open and groaned. “’m dead…”

“You’re not dead. Your back’ll kill you t’morrow, though ‘f y’sleep like tha…”

“Bed?” Steve asked. Apparently, Steve couldn’t do anything better than one-syllable sentences when heavily inebriated.

Forcing himself up from the couch, Steve slung an arm around Tony’s shoulders to use the slighter man as a human crutch on the way to the bedroom, hobbling together.

Once in the bedroom, Steve collapsed like falling timber on his bed, dragging Tony with him. Apparently, Steve also was a bit too handsy in this state as Tony came to realize when Steve wrapped his limbs around Tony like a python and engulfed the latter in the furnace that was the larger man’s body.

“I gotta get’ome, Steve…you gotta le’go of me,” Tony slurred into Steve’s bedsheets.

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Steve murmured, this time against the shell of Tony’s ear, his breath tantalizingly warm against the side of Tony’s head. “’Cos y’kissed me… why’d you kiss me, Tony?”

“Tha’ was a accident,” mumbled Tony, squirming in Steve’s embrace. Something in his nether regions was just beginning to find this whole set-up deliciously uncomfortable. He had to do something about it, and fast, if he didn’t want a most discomfiting drunken hard-on in the history of hard-ons. “If y’dint like it—‘m sorry…”

“I dunno,” Steve murmured against Tony’s hair.

“You dunno? You dunno what?”

“I dunno ‘f I dint like it,” Steve confessed. “I’m not gay, y’know. God—yer hair smells nice…”

“Y’ave to lemme go, ya big lug,” Tony urged, squirming more to try to get out of Steve’s vice-like hold on him. The blonde’s breath against his scalp made him shiver; goosebumps erupted on the nape of his neck and slowly crawled down his spine. “Steve? Steeeeeeve…”

Steve’s only response was the even breathing of the very asleep.

Well, shit.

At some point in the course of the night, Tony stopped squirming against Steve and succumbed to the tantalizing call of slumber, too.

-0-0-0-

Tony awoke, groaning, to a splitting headache and to wide-open cerulean blue eyes. To tamp down on the awkward, the engineer rolled to the other side of the bed and sat up with his back turned towards his accidental bed partner, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

The warmth of Steve’s arm over his abdomen and Steve’s legs slinked around his still ghosted over his skin.

But Jesus—it _had_ been a long time since he’d had a hangover as terrible as this that waking up next to the sexy neighbor he’s been fantasizing over was not producing the desired results. It was probably for the better because the look on Steve’s face was more than enough to compound Tony’s immense headache.

Tony turned a bit, glimpsing Steve’s back from out of the corner of his eye. “Shit, I’m sorry you had to wake up to a squatter in your bed, Steve. I—“ He didn’t really know how to explain it. What was he supposed to say? Somehow, Tony didn’t think the explanation _‘You had your limbs wrapped around me like a python when you fell asleep and refused to let go until I, too, already fell asleep and now, here we are!’_ was going to be all that palatable to the blonde.

Waking up next to Steve—after they’d drunk themselves into a stupor last night, without having done anything remotely frisky, mind—was proving itself worse than the mornings after with people that Tony’d actually fucked.

“No, no—it’s, uh, fine,” Steve replied, turning a bit as well, so his profile was visible to Tony. “We were both drunk out of our minds and I probably asked you to stay, right?”

“Sure.” Right—because Tony would not have stayed had Steve not had himself draped all over him.

“Wow, my head feels like it’s being hacked open by a machete,” reported Steve, standing up and kneading his head. “That was some party last night.”

“Some party,” agreed Tony, still watching Steve stealthily. Both of them were still in yesterday’s clothes, of course, because they were just too plastered to do anything last night but fall into bed, wrapped around each other.

“Would you, um, care for some coffee then? I’ll put on a fresh pot,” offered Steve, on the threshold of his bedroom.

“Yeah, thanks,” Tony answered with a grateful, thin-lipped smile. Although every instinct he had seemed to tell him to bolt out of there like death, itself, was after him—to hell with coffee and his fucking headache, his butt stubbornly stayed glued to the bed. Also, Tony _absolutely_ refused to think about how very delectable Steve was in yesterday’s rumpled clothes and crazy bedhead—like he had been debauched in the worst way.

Cringing, he stood up from the bed and dragged his feet from the bedroom to Steve’s small kitchen for the promised coffee, swearing to himself that he was going to politely fuck off out of there after one cup.

“Thanks for making sure I didn’t get brained in the stairs,” Steve said, handing him a piping hot cup of coffee, which, when Tony took a gulp, he found to be exactly the way he wanted his coffee. Another one of Steve’s many talents, apparently. “Because I assume it was you who’d helped me up from Scott’s. I was half-expecting to wake up still clinging to Scott’s doorjamb—“

Tony nearly spewed his coffee out through the nose at that.

“—or something unless I just imagined clinging to Scott’s doorjamb last night and that didn’t happen at all?”

“Oh no—that really happened,” Tony confirmed, still fighting the urge to hack a lung. “So, you remember everything that happened last night?” Tony took another cautious slurp of precious coffee.

“I remember the games and what happened in them, mostly,” answered the blonde with a shrug. “But, you know, I can’t remember how many drinks I’ve had or how many shots I’ve had during the card game, exactly…”

“What about after we got back here? Do you…remember that?” What Tony was setting himself up for by asking _these_ questions, he didn’t know.

Steve turned around to face the coffeemaker on the counter and grabbed the pot. “I remember going to the couch first, but someone—again, I’m assuming that’s you—told me to go to bed instead,” he said, topping his cup off with coffee again. “I, uh, don’t remember anything after that.”

“Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. That’s pretty much all that happened,” assured Tony. “I didn’t intend to sleep on the bed with you, you know. I told myself, I’d just shut my eyes for a bit because I was so hammered last night, and the next thing I knew, it was fucking morning already.” He didn’t know why he was fucking _explaining_ ; it wasn’t like Steve was demanding for an explanation as to how they ended up in bed together!

“You didn’t try anything _deal-breaking_ last night, did you?”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t?” Tony asked. “And besides, who was I supposed to feel up last night? You? I’m a sleaze, Steve, but even I wouldn’t take advantage of a person who was passed-out drunk. Informed consent is kinda part of my M.O.”

Steve turned to look at him sheepishly and said, “all right, I believe you.”

“As much as I want to keep intruding on your hospitality, I gotta go home to take a shower. So,” Tony segued, moving closer to Steve and the sink with every intention of rinsing his cup like a civilized person before he hightailed it out of there. “Thanks for the coffee, and I will get outta your hair now—“

“—‘s OK, I’ll take care of it,” Steve offered with another thin-lipped smile.

Tony hung back in the entryway to Steve’s apartment, introspectively observing Steve rinse his cup. What was the matter with him?! Shaking his head inwardly and as if waking up from a night of a particularly bad orgy, Tony furrowed his brows and purposefully strode out of his neighbor’s apartment without another backward glance.

He fumbled with his keys a bit but was able to let himself in his own apartment in under half a minute. He closed and locked the door, stripped his clothes off in the entryway, and naked, headed for his bedroom’s en suite bathroom after a passing scratch to the back of his cat, Friday’s, ear. His introspection about Steve, last night’s excitement, and this morning’s immense awkwardness was nothing that a long, hot shower couldn’t fix.

However, after twenty minutes under the full blast of hot water, Steve still stubbornly held Tony’s thoughts. Tony knew he should really stop because there was absolutely no reason to dwell about Steve and their fast-becoming-complicated relationship. Especially since, realizing what day it was, Tony recognized that there were far more pressing and impending matters to concern himself with.

Tony refused to think about how he enjoyed the stolen kiss from Steve last night, or how he tingled all over every time he saw Steve’s face redden, or how his chest felt full while being held in Steve’s embrace when they had fallen in the latter’s bed together after the party, or how breathless he felt when he’d heard the blonde’s honest confession about not knowing whether he’d liked being kissed by Tony.

He chalked this up to nothing but anticipation. That was about right, right? He was just anticipating what awaited him after his thirty-day toil was over that Tony was fixating on Steve.

He flat-out refused to think about it all. About what he felt. For Steve. Or _because_ of Steve.

Only, he couldn’t stop.


	13. DAYS 21 - 23

Steve decided to give Captain a bath in the tub for lack of better things to do. He gave his pet’s fur a good wash, preoccupying himself with the motions of scouring the brush from Captain’s neck to his flanks, dipping it in soap-filled water to rinse and then scrubbing again. Scour. Rinse. Repeat.

Steve’s current brooding mood obviously affected Captain, too, which was why even he was unusually behaved while his human gave him a good scrubbing down. Captain’s warm brown eyes were inquiring and attentive, probably wondering what’s got his human’s knickers in a bunch.

“Why are you looking at me like that, huh?” Steve asked his dog, scratching behind the mutt’s sudsy ears. “I know how much you enjoy your baths but you’re uncharacteristically behaved today,” he continued. “You’re probably wondering what my deal is, huh?”

Steve’s deal _must_ really be immense if he was resorting to getting some kind of counselling from his dog! What was he expecting that Captain would say anyway? That he should stop thinking about it because it just wasn’t worth it?

Why was it always about Tony anyway? Tony _fucking_ Stark… Steve thought Tony would cease to be his problem when he devised the Celibacy Challenge that would put a stop to Tony’s dynamic sex life; how wrong he was. Now, Tony was still Steve’s problem but it was of a completely different kind, coming from left field to rock Steve to his very foundations. Particularly, his previously-accepted-as-fact _heterosexual_ foundations.

Not that he had any problems about being bisexual or being gay. He didn’t think his friends and colleagues would have any problem with it either. It was just that it was a possibility previously unexplored before Tony Stark bulldozed his way into Steve’s life.

Tony _fucking_ Stark.

And, OK, assuming for the sake of argument that Steve really was gay or bisexual, at least, did it really have to be Tony Stark that would make Steve question his heterosexual orientation? Did it have to be Tony that he would end up being attracted to? Tony, who’d probably seen more action than the most prolific porn star, who didn’t believe in relationships, who’d confessed to not having had any relationships that lasted longer than a blowjob, who was a sarcastic, unapologetic, arrogant rascal.

It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t possibly be attracted to Tony. Because Steve was not about physical attraction but emotional and psychological, too, and Tony was not the type that Steve would normally be attracted to, regardless of his sensuality and immense good looks.

So, if Steve couldn’t possibly be attracted to Tony? What _was_ that that morning when Steve woke up cuddled with his neighbor and he just felt like he had never wanted to kiss anyone more than he wanted to kiss Tony right at that moment?

‘Cause that… _feeling_ both exhilarated and scared the living shit out of Steve.

“He kissed me last night—Tony. Did you know?” Steve asked the animal he was giving a bath. Captain gazed back at him dolefully. “He claimed it was an _accident_. Accident, my ass. I think he orchestrated it, but he didn’t even have the balls to admit that he planned it.”

Captain whined and looked back at him with wide brown eyes as if to say ‘ _I know right?_ ’

“And you know what’s worse? I called him out on it, and told him I don’t know if I liked it or not that he kissed me!” Steve protested, groaning and closing his eyes in shame and defeat. He said he couldn’t remember anything that had happened after he tried to sleep on the couch, but of course, he lied. He was a shit liar—like he was shit at flirting—so he avoided Tony’s eyes because he would’ve given himself away. The truth was he could remember _all of it_. How he’d draped himself all over Tony and dragged the slighter man into his bed with him, how he’d called Tony out for kissing him, how he’d clung to the man like a possessive octopus, how he’d told Tony that his hair smelled nice!

He’d have facepalmed all over again if he had not been up to his elbows in suds and dog.

“I’m an idiot, Cap. I am an _utter moron_ ,” bemoaned Steve. Somehow, in the course of twenty-two days since the Celibacy Challenge started, Steve’s need to hang out with Tony had stopped being about policing the latter and had evolved into… something else. Something he dreaded to think about. Something he didn’t have the courage to face—now and, maybe, _ever_.

“Thing is…I actually _like_ hanging out with him,” admitted Steve, stroking the sides of Captain’s face with his thumbs and staring into his dog’s brown eyes, which he liked to think were sympathetic to Steve’s inner turmoil. “But now, I’m just afraid of the reason why I do.”

Steve finished bathing Captain and toweled the mutt off. All that time, he kept sighing intermittently. He was both distressed because of what he was feeling and excited for the remaining days that he would be spending in Tony’s company, policing the latter into keeping his covenant under the Celibacy Challenge.

Steve spent the rest of the day in a haze of absent-mindedness. He didn’t know how long it took him to scrub his bathtub and the rest of his bathroom clean, vacuum the living room and wipe down his kitchen counters. Fixing the disarray of his bedsheets and pillows, though, was the worst because he kept imagining being tangled with Tony on the same bed all through the night.

For his part, Tony kept silent in his apartment. There weren’t any odd hammering or drilling sounds or death metal music—not a peep from the apartment’s single occupant. It made Steve want to give Tony’s place a knock just to satisfy himself that the engineer was still there, but he stopped himself. He didn’t have any right—or reason—to do that. He could say he was policing the brunette again, but Tony would just probably look at him funny while he tried to babble through _that_ explanation.

No. They’d be seeing each other tomorrow afternoon anyway when Steve would pick Tony up on the way home. They’d probably grab dinner in some posh place again, where Tony would make him approach an attractive girl’s table to flirt with her in the guise of practicing Steve’s rusty dating skills. They’d talk about something superficial, like the evolution of whatever food they’d be eating, and something deep, like incidents in their lives that defined them.

And Steve looked forward to it more than he should.

The evening and the morning that followed passed by in a distracted blur for the former soldier. He blessedly had a lot of work to get through so he, at least, didn’t spend it daydreaming or staring into space, trying to make heads or tails of his current emotional storm.

But goddamn if he didn’t have a bit of spring in his step as he walked towards Tony’s office building on the afternoon of the twenty-second day of the Celibacy Challenge.

“Hey Steve,” Pepper greeted him in the reception area of _Stark Industries_ with some tension in the lines of her body that Steve couldn’t quite get a read on yet. “What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, came to pick Tony up, ‘course,” Steve answered, equally quizzically. Pepper knew he had been keeping an eye on Tony. What _was_ going on?

“Tony’s not here. He called very early today to tell me that he was staying home for the day. He didn’t tell you, did he?” Pepper said, her face scrunching into one that was a cross between worry and annoyance.

“Tell me what?”

“It’s his mom’s birthday today, and it’s always been a particularly trying occasion for Tony. He was close to his mom,” Pepper relayed, chewing on her bottom lip. “Something…unfortunate always happens during his mom’s birthday. Three years ago, on this day, he was rushed to the hospital for suspected alcohol poisoning. Four years ago, he got into a brawl in a hole-in-the-wall pub and was thrown in jail overnight. Last year, he just up and left the country to go to _Tuvalu_. Most years, he just drank himself unconscious,” explained Pepper, wringing her hands together now. “Maybe, you should give him a knock in his place, Steve; see if he’s OK?”

Steve got it. _Something_ was always up during Tony’s mother’s birth anniversary. “Y—yeah, yeah—I can do that…”

“And maybe, give me a ring before he does something to get himself arrested again?”

“Sure, Pepper,” Steve reassured, already walking back towards the banks of elevators to leave the building and rush home as quickly as possible.

Though the subway was a nightmare as always, Steve didn’t mind it as he walked through the station at a punishing pace and then squeezed his bulky frame into the coach he was able to catch despite his utter discomfort. He didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the next one; he had to get home immediately because he promised Pepper that he’d check on Tony.

Also, he, himself, was somewhat worried for Tony. If the man was always on a self-destructive mood today, he needed someone to keep him company so he could dial down on the self-destruction.

Steve ran the rest of the way from the station to their apartment building. He was bent over, clutching at his side and breathing just a tad more heavily at the building’s entryway for a couple of minutes. He knew it could’ve been worse if he wasn’t as physically fit as he was. Then, he took the stairs two-at-a-time to the fifth floor.

“Tony?” Steve called, knocking on the engineer’s apartment door while composing himself so he didn’t look like he had rushed to get there. It was possible that Tony wouldn’t appreciate Pepper telling Steve about today’s occasion and Tony’s unique and disturbing way of commemorating it. “Tony—are you in there?”

Steve tried turning the knob and found the door unlocked, to his surprise. Pushing the door open, Steve crossed the threshold still calling out, “Tony? I passed by your building and Pepper told me you didn’t come to work today.” Tony didn’t have to know that that wasn’t all that Pepper had told him.

As it turned out, Steve didn’t have to worry about Tony’s reaction to Pepper passing along information to Steve because the brunette was unconscious, spread-eagled and face down on his bed atop rumpled sheets, in nothing but dark blue boxer briefs. 

“Tony!” Steve rushed, tripping, to Tony’s side. He repeatedly called the engineer by name, shaking him by the shoulder to see whether he was responsive. Pulling his phone from the front pocket of his jeans, Steve was just about ready to call 911 when Tony moaned and cracked one eye open.

“Hey…” Tony said, by way of greeting. The brunette turned his head to the side to open both eyes and look Steve over, whimpering. “Wha’ssup?”

“Are you OK? Pepper said you didn’t go to work today,” Steve said, being intentionally vague. “Tony, have you been _drinking_?”

“Hmmm…”

“We got completely hammered just the other night and, here you are, drinking again?” Steve asked, disapprovingly. “Hey—is something wrong?”

The engineer visibly gulped and gingerly rolled over to lie on his back this time. Steve tried to ignore the fact that Tony was _still_ , quite disconcertingly, underdressed, clad only in boxer briefs that left absolutely nothing to Steve’s imagination. So, Steve did his best to try to avert where his gaze fell.

“’s my mom’s birthday t’day,” slurred Tony. “I ‘cided to cel’brate in my own way.”

Steve thought it best not to reply and just let Tony air out his melancholy.

“I miss her,” admitted the brunette, blinking away the glassiness of his sad, brown eyes. “She w’s the ‘nly one loved me, you know. My father dint think I’s worth shit. But my mom…she w’s special. A real special gal.”

“You must have loved her very much,” observed Steve. “And she must have been a special lady if she was able to raise a son like you.” And Steve found himself meaning every word of that, too. Tony was not perfect, and he could be a— _well_ —a sleaze when it came to intimacy, but Tony wasn’t all-bad. He was rough around the edges, but he _wasn’t_ all-bad. Steve felt his heart go out for the other man, whose eyes were not the same mischievous ones that the blonde had grown familiar with.

Steve watched Tony prepare to answer, but the latter started dry heaving instead like he was going to puke himself empty on the bed of whatever crap he had imbibed. Acting quickly, Steve helped Tony up and off the bed and supported him to the en suite bathroom. Steve flipped the toilet’s lid up and made sure that the sick was going to go _in_ the toilet and not on the tiled floor.

Tony, with his ungainly legs folding beneath him, viciously wretched in the toilet while Steve stroked his back to help him along in expelling the vile liquor. Despite Steve’s best intentions, however, Tony still got some sick on the floor by the toilet and on his chest, arms and lap. The blonde was suddenly thankful that Tony was only in his underwear.

“Hey… Tony? Why don’t we get you cleaned up so you can get some sleep, all right?” Steve asked, lifting Tony’s left arm up to sling it over his shoulders so he could support Tony to the nearby tub/shower where he had the brunette sit snugly in the tub while he washed a small towel with soap and water on the sink to clean his neighbor with. He didn’t want the risk of Tony slipping during a shower, so a wet towel it was.

Once Tony was vomit-free, Steve checked him over for signs of alcohol poisoning that he knew of: if his lips, fingertips or skin were turning blue, if he had cold and clammy hands and feet, if he had a rapid pulse, if he was breathing too slowly or irregularly. When he was satisfied that Tony was not in danger of alcohol poisoning, he gently told Tony to keep still while he ran back to the bedroom to grab some clothes for his current ward.

He helped Tony dress in a thin white shirt and lounge pants and, hobbling together, guided him back to the bedroom. When Tony was tucked in bed, Steve made for the kitchen to grab some water in a Starbucks tumbler for hydration of the very drunk, an ice pack, which he filled with fridge-cold water to help Tony sober up since Steve opted out of making the other man get a shower, and a mat of Paracetamol from a bowl on the kitchen counter.

Steve returned to a sleepy-looking-but-not-quite-sleeping Tony, wrapped in rumpled sheets on his bed. “How’re you feeling?”

“Rotten,” automatically answered Tony. “Guilty. Because you’re being so nice to me.” He was still slurring his words a bit, but it wasn’t as garbled as before.

“You _did_ look out for me when I was sick, so this is just payback for that,” Steve said, sitting down on the side of the bed, by Tony’s splayed legs.

“I wish my mom could’ve met you,” said Tony, wistful. “She’d’ve adored you. She adored Rhodey when I introduced them in university, and she absolutely loved Pepper when they met during my first year working for _Stark Enterprises_. She’d’ve loved you.”

“How old were you when she passed?”

“I was, I think, twenty-four or twenty-five. It was around the time that I was getting my second doctorate. She was in a car accident. My dad was driving,” Tony related, pinching his nose and sniffing. “She was the only parent figure I had growing up, apart from—maybe—our butler, Jarvis. My father was…an _asshole_ ,” said Tony, chuckling humorlessly, and continued, “workaholic _alcoholic_ who didn’t know love and affection if they bit him in the face… Dead for _ten years_ and losing her still affects me so. Guess, you’re not the only one who gets hung up on someone, huh?” The engineer grimaced.

Steve averted his eyes from Tony guiltily, briefly remembering a conversation they had early on in the Challenge when Tony chided Steve for being so hung up on his ex and Steve joked back that Tony would be, too, if the latter were in his shoes. But, of course, Tony knew the feeling as well, having lost his _mom_ and not completely recovering from it.

Steve started, “I’m sorry I—“

“—don’t be. I’m not trying to guilt-trip you, Steve, OK? I’m still the same asshole you’re currently cockblocking,” joked Tony, raking a hand through his dark brown hair. “Thanks, by the way.”

Steve didn’t need to ask what for. He just knew. “You’re welcome.”

“Even if Pepper probably put you up to it,” Tony said, conjecturing with an amused twinkle in his eyes. The brown orbs were slowly losing the lost and haunted sadness in them.

“She just didn’t want you doing something that might get you arrested again,” answered Steve as good as admitting that Pepper had indeed put him up to it. It was, at least, easier to explain than Steve admitting that he, himself, was worried and concerned for the engineer’s well-being.

“Yeah,” Tony said, “I think I’ll be all right now, Steve. I don’t want to spoil the rest of your evening.” It was Tony’s polite way of telling Steve that he could get lost now.

“You know, according to this website I read, one is not supposed to let drunk people fall asleep on their own,” informed Steve, getting up from the bed only to transfer to the short couch tucked in the corner of Tony’s bedroom. “So, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay if only to tell Pepper that I didn’t screw up the one favor she asked of me.”

“Suit yourself,” Tony acceded, sinking deeper in his sheets to catch a few winks and sleep off his alcohol high. “Good night.”

“Good night, Tony.”

-0-0-0-

Steve didn’t know what woke him up because when he did, it was still dark and Tony was still fast asleep, nestled in his covers, mouth slightly open and breathing evenly. Apparently, Tony really didn’t snore, and Steve was wrong about _that_ , too. Again.

As quietly as he could manage, Steve spot-checked Tony again for any signs of alcohol poisoning and fixed the brunette’s blankets around him before tiptoeing his way out of the bedroom to go home, grab a midnight snack of a bowl of cereal and get ready for an early start to his day.

Before he could cross the threshold out of the bedroom, however, Tony stirred and called, “Think you can leave like a thief in the night?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” replied Steve, hesitating by the bedroom door.

“No worries,” said Tony, shifting in bed. “I apologize for any inconvenience I might have caused you with this little stunt, and I also want to thank you—again—for doing right by Pepper.”

“It wasn’t a big deal. I’m just glad I could help.” Steve smiled primly before turning towards the bedroom door anew.

“Can I interest you to, maybe, play hooky again today?” Tony piped up again before Steve could really leave.

Steve chuckled but declined, “I can’t, Tony. I have to be at work today.” Why did he feel so guilty as he said that, though?

“Oh OK, of course…”

“But maybe, _you_ should think about staying home again today,” advised Steve. “That was quite an ordeal you went through, being plastered for _two_ consecutive days,” he continued, whistling. “After all, there’s gotta be some perks to owning your own company, right?”

Tony chortled, “yeah…right.”

“Hey, uh, if you’re skiving off work today, maybe you can text me? So I don’t have to pass by your office building later in the afternoon, yeah?”

“Sure, I’ll let you know,” agreed Tony, burrowing anew in his pillows and blankets. “Hey Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you lock the door as you go out?” Tony requested. “Thanks,” yawned Tony.

Steve was finally able to leave Tony’s apartment, locking the door behind him as the latter requested.

Once back in his place, he put food out for Captain and poured some cereal for himself. While he ate, he shot a text to Pepper, reporting about what had happened last night and reassuring her that Tony was just dandy. He didn’t expect a reply as it was only ten minutes before four in the morning, and she was still probably asleep.

Since he had some time to kill, Steve decided to change into his running clothes to clock in a couple of miles before his day really got started. He remembered how he’d fared during his run home last night and chalked it up to his laziness. He had not been running since Tony’s Challenge, and that was probably why he felt less than stellar, running from the station to the apartment building last night.

He made a couple of circuits around the neighborhood, giving passing greetings to familiar people on the street. After about an hour and around ten miles of going around four blocks of the neighborhood, Steve went back to his apartment to eat some fruit for breakfast and get ready for work.

Steve picked up his newspaper from the hallway right in front of his door, let himself inside his apartment and prepped himself for a new day by snacking on an apple and a banana, taking a shower, preparing a load of washing for the machine later, choosing what to wear to work, changing, picking up after and putting food out for Captain, reading the front page of the paper while he waited for his coffeemaker to churn out coffee—some of which he would drink and the rest he would pour in his tumbler for his commute.

When he was ready to leave, he slung his mailman satchel and made for the door. He was locking his apartment when he was accosted by Tony, who was still dressed in last night’s thin shirt and lounge pants.

“Still haven’t decided if you’re coming to work?” He asked, facing his neighbor while tucking his newspaper under an armpit.

“Haven’t decided yet. I’m actually not feeling all that hungover, so…”

“So yeah, I’ll—uh—go ahead to try to catch an early train,” Steve said by way of goodbye, heading for the stairwell.

He was on the second step, when Tony called after him, halting him in his step. “Hey Steve—uh—hang on!”

“Yeah?”

“How’s your Saturday look like?”

Steve was thrown off for a bit, confused. “Wha—you mean, _this_ coming Saturday?”

“Sure.”

He fumbled, at a loss. “Well… I was planning on inviting Bucky and Sam over for our regular Saturday night bonding, and maybe Thor, too. It’s been a while since he was available on a Saturday to join us,” answered Steve. “ _You’re_ welcome to join us, too, if you like.”

“Yeah, thanks for the offer, but I can’t—not this Saturday,” Tony clarified, rubbing the back of his neck. “I _was_ hoping I could persuade you to join _me_ , though.”

“Join you where? Not to another investors’ thing. ‘Cause, you know, last time went down _so_ well,” Steve said half-amused and half-sarcastic.

“The annual gala celebrating the institution of the _Maria Stark Foundation_ on the occasion of my mother’s birth anniversary is going to be held this coming Saturday,” related Tony. “And I was hoping you could accompany me.”

“Oh!” Yeah— _Oh!_ Why couldn’t he have had a better response to Tony’s invitation than a surprised _Oh!_

“So how about it? Think you can postpone the Saturday Night Video Games Bonanza to help a friend in need here?” Tony cajoled with a lopsided grin.

“Can I think about it?” Steve teased, even though the truth was, he had already decided to go.

“ _Come on_ , Steve! What’s there to think about? It’s another event that poses a lot of temptation for me. You wanna keep an eye on me? Then, you gotta be there,” pressed the brunette, short of begging really, but Steve didn’t want to point out to get some more fun out of it.

“ _All right_! OK. I’ll go,” Steve assented with a small smile.

“Yes!” Tony was victorious, and his smile was quite contagious. He gave a two-fingered salute before getting out of Steve’s line of sight.

It was then that Steve realized something. “Hey Tony!” He called. “Is there gonna be a _dress code_ to that gala thing?” Panic was burgeoning in his insides. He hated wearing penguin suits almost as much as he hated being cheated on by his girlfriend.

“You _already_ said you’d go! No take-backs!” Tony hollered back in a sing-song voice. “Bye, neighbor!”


	14. DAYS 24 - 27

“Is it normal that you can barely breathe wearing these things?”

“You’re just not used to wearing bowties, that’s all. _I_ can breathe fine wearing them.”

“No, seriously, I think I’m really turning blue in the face, Tony.”

“How about a nice necktie, huh? Maybe blue and silver to accentuate your eyes…”

“Don’t neckties follow the same principle as bowties? _Breathing is prohibited_. Next thing I know, you’re gonna make me wear a _collar_.”

“I didn’t know you have that kink, Steve!” Catcall.

“I _don’t_ …” Blush. “Can’t I just wear a nice button-down without these infernal asphyxiating hazards?”

“That would be a waste. Because you happen to look really good wearing them.”

“I do?”

“Stop fishing for compliments, heathen! I’ll have Ronaldo, my outfitter, put forth options for you to try on and we’ll see.”

“Do I _really_ have to? Can’t we postpone this for tomorrow or something, at least? I’m really hungry, Tony. I had a lot of paperwork to deal with at work; I had a particularly difficult time, researching some info on a person we were supposed to find dirt on; I have a mountain of pending reimbursable stuff that the accounting department is withholding from me. The last thing I need today is for me to be your _Ken doll_!”

“We have to do this now because I have a salon appointment for the two of us scheduled tomorrow.”

“A _what_?”

“A salon appointment. We’re getting our hair styled and maybe a Mani Pedi for you or something.”

“You’re _kidding_ …”

“Personal grooming is no laughing matter, Steve. If you’re getting back in the dating scene, you have to have some sort of repackaging—an _overhaul_ , so to speak. So, yeah—we’re going to the salon tomorrow and you’re getting a decent and _stylish_ haircut.”

“If I had known that agreeing to go to that gala was going to be this much trouble, I should’ve just had my testicles pureed.”

“It’s not only _women_ who are supposed to watch their appearance and who need pampering every once in a while, you know. Even us, guys, need that. And besides, I, for one, am not gonna be caught dead dating an unkempt hooligan who can’t rock a bowtie and with fingernails bitten to the quick—“

“Wait, wait, wait… Who said this is going to be _date_?!”

“What do you think this is going to be?! You’re certainly not there to be my _bodyguard_ , that’s for sure… I asked you—nicely—if you could accompany me to the gala and you said yes. What _do_ you think this is going to be?”

“J—just, just…to _hang out_ or something. You did say you needed someone to keep the temptation to a minimum—“

“—to _hang out_?! I asked you to accompany me to a black-tie event in a friggin’ hotel to _hang out_ … That’s it… Ronaldo! I’m putting this douche at your mercy. Do what you want with him, but I want him spic-and-span on Saturday. Maybe a silver accent or a dark purple suit? Something eye-catching…”

Sheer horror.

-0-0-0-

“Look at your horrid cuticles! They’ve never seen a proper, professional nail technician, have they? _Good Lord_ …”

“I clip my own nails, OK?”

“OK—Steve? You have to understand that taking pride in your appearance goes a long way in dating. You already have the package—all-American boy, blonde hair, blue eyes, great body, nice bone structure. But it’s all worth _shit_ if you don’t know how to take care of what assets you have. Don’t forget that your looks would be your first come-on to a potential partner.”

“But looks aren’t everything. True love is not based on something skin-deep…”

“Well, of the two of us, _you_ —Mr. Long-term Relationship—would know about true love, wouldn’t you? But before you _get_ to true love, you have to catch their attention first, and _that_ …is undeniably _my_ territory, so you gotta listen to me.”

“…”

“I’m not telling you to be a vain asshat, OK? All I’m saying is that you have to take care of yourself. You have to pamper yourself and consider yourself worthy of some pampering. Because your partner will not bother to fight in order to keep you if you, yourself, think you’re not worth anything.”

Sigh. “I guess you have a point.”

“Of course I have a point, so you’re going to let Ginger here do your nails and Franco will take care of your hairstyle. None of this ‘do like you’d come from the ‘40s or something. And you will _sit_ there and _take_ it like a man and _love_ it. I want us turning heads during the gala. If I’m going to be grinding my teeth in excruciating pain all night, at least I’d be in the company of some eye candy while I’m at it.”

-0-0-0-

“Where are we really going, Steve?”

“You’ll see. Turn left on Grand, OK?”

“OK—this isn’t some form of payback for the suit fitting the other day and the trip to the salon yesterday, is it?”

“No, Tony. I’m not _that_ vindictive.”

“That’s up for debate, considering what started this whole, sordid thing twenty-six days ago.”

“You’re _still_ bringing that up? And here I thought, we were way past that already.”

“Oh you thought wrong, Rogers. Because until my life is back to its regular programming, I’d be repeatedly bringing the issue up. But seriously…where are we headed?”

“ _There_. That’s where we’re going…”

“Is that a…a _shelter_?”

“Yes, it is. Bucky and I still volunteer at that shelter a lot. It mostly caters to homeless, abandoned and abused children. We first started going there and volunteering after we’d both recovered from our respective injuries. The counselors at the VA had advised us to find somewhere we could feel engaged and needed, where we would be able to focus more on helping the plight of others rather than our feelings of loss and inadequacy, and our search took us here. The children here were all very sweet and they radiated hope despite facing such challenges in their young lives. Being here helped me and Bucky tremendously.”

“So…why take _me_ here, then?”

“Because the _Maria Stark Foundation_ is this shelter’s primary sponsor. And I thought you’d like to know that—that the foundation named after your mother—the one, I presume, you helped establish to remember her by, is responsible not only for providing these unfortunate kids a place to call home but also to provide rudderless, injured veterans like me and Bucky a place to find ourselves and our purpose in life again.”

“…”

“Tony? Are you all right? You’ve fallen uncharacteristically silent; Did I break you? Are you…OK? Hey…”

“I’m OK. I just… I know the _Foundation_ sponsors a lot of different advocacies and shelters and homes, and I’ve been to some of them with much pomp and media-frenzied welcome for purposes of publicity. But…I must say I like your way better, and I’ve actually never been to this particular shelter before. I’m glad to know that the _Foundation_ ’s helped these kids…and you.”

“It has. And with the Foundation’s backing, this shelter will be able to help more people, Tony. I’ve always wanted to be able to thank the organization that keeps this place afloat, and now I finally can…Thank you.”

“No, Steve. Thank _you_. For taking me here.”

“Shall we park and get inside then? I’m sure the kids and the rest of the volunteers would be thrilled to meet you.”

“Sure. Let’s. I’m excited to meet them, too.”

-0-0-0-

“So…what am I supposed to expect in this gala then?” Steve turned towards Tony in the backseat of the silver limousine that was streaking its way through midtown to take them to the venue of the Annual _Maria Stark Foundation_ Gala. Tony noticed, with an amused quirk to the corners of his lips which he quickly schooled to a neutral expression, how Steve was trying his best not to tug at the crisp black bowtie around his neck or fidget where he sat in his haute couture ensemble.

“Oh, you know—the usual…overpriced buffet fare, booze, people dressed in their best, pledges for donations, I think a live band would be playing, too, oh and dancing, of course,” rattled Tony off, studying Steve from out of the corner of his eye and congratulating himself and his stylist, Ronaldo, on the superb job of outfitting the blonde.

They decided to go with a classic, black, three-button, single-breasted, peak-lapelled, bespoke tuxedo with a crisp black bowtie and pocket square, and paired with a white silk shirt. Steve, with his coiffed ‘do in the current style, looked absolutely stunning that Tony could stare at the blonde all evening in the back of the limo and feel like he’d had the best night of his life.

“Oh.” Steve seemed worried. He fidgeted in his seat, tugging at the neck of his shirt and the hem of his jacket’s sleeves.

“Just leave it be, Steve,” advised Tony, rolling his eyes in consternation at the blonde’s obvious discomfort. “You look great; the tux suits you.”

“I don’t feel so great; I think I look funny,” lamented Steve, pulling at the collar of his silk shirt again. “ _You’re_ the who looks se— _awesome_ in your suit,” complimented Steve with not a little resentment and bashfulness at what he almost said.

Was Steve going to say that Tony looked _sexy_ in his suit?

The engineer wasn’t about to downplay it either—he really _did_ look sexy awesome in his all-black, three-buttoned, three-piece, single-breasted, peak-lapelled, bespoke suit, with a black silk shirt and a pearl-white silk scarf hanging from his shoulders as accent. His hair was tastefully tousled and his Van Dyke impeccably trimmed. Not a hair or thread was out of place.

“Why thank you if you think so, Mr. Rogers. In that case, let me pay you the self-same compliment,” Tony joked with a smirk. “You look _great_ , Steve. You just need to relax, all right?”

They were pulling up to the curb of the hotel where the gala was going to be held when Tony saw the army of reporters and media people gathered there. “Oh, I might have forgotten to mention the throng of media people waiting on the red-carpet entrance—that’s just a minor detail, though—nothing to worry about,” reassured Tony with a dismissive wave of his hand. He didn’t miss the wide-eyed horror on Steve’s face, however.

Happy, Tony’s chauffeur, rushed to the side to open the door for his passengers, and Tony stepped off the limo, jovial smile and simple hand wave both in place for the waiting media. Lights flashed and phones and portable mics were shoved in his personal space to get some kind of statement from him, but he paid them no mind as he held the door open for Steve to step off the vehicle as well. The blonde was like a fish out of water with the way he held himself together in front of the flashing lights and clamoring people, but at least he was there, a solid presence beside Tony. Tony, for his part, did his level best to shield Steve from the worst of the cameras and the gossipmongers.

The media people asked him for statements or comments about the steady rise in _Stark Industries_ stock prices in the last couple of months, new advocacies that the _Maria Stark Foundation_ , under his leadership, intended to undertake as well as if he was seriously dating the gorgeous GQ model he was currently with. He was in the middle of answering them all with his usual good humor and charm when he felt Steve press his forearm against Tony’s before straightforwardly grabbing and clutching at his hand.

“I hate to cut our chat short, but we must really get inside now. We’re already running late and you know how the party doesn’t start until I get there,” joked Tony with a wink and a good-natured smile at the media people before clutching back at Steve’s hand and pulling the other man along to the venue’s entrance.

“Are you all right, Steve?” Tony asked, squeezing the other man’s hand. “Did they ask you anything intrusive? You didn’t have to answer any of their questions if you didn’t want to, you know.”

“No, no—they, uh, they didn’t ask me anything more than to try to find who I am and what our relationship is. I didn’t tell them anything,” Steve reassured, self-consciously pulling his hand back from Tony’s grasp.

“Wouldn’t have mattered if you did ‘cause whatever happens, your face will be splashed all over the society pages of the _Times_ come morning,” shrugged Tony, traversing the hotel corridor to the ballroom where the gala was being held with Steve close at his heels. “Probably all for the best—our appearance together tonight will corroborate the story we told your ex. It’s undeniable evidence that you have indeed moved on.”

Steve’s expression clouded over. “Jesus, how do you get used to such an invasion of your privacy?”

“You don’t. I’ve never gotten used to dealing with the media, but SI is getting quite the public interest lately so media attention in unavoidable. I don’t interface with them all that often except during rare occasions like this, and I suppose I should be thankful for that. As it is, I don’t even get recognized in the streets all that often,” remarked Tony. “Although, _sometimes_ celebrity does have its perks,” the brunette hinted with a salacious wink at his companion for the night before pushing the ballroom’s double doors open and stepping inside to join the party.

The hotel ballroom was decorated in silk banners of lavender, white and silver, which Tony informed Steve were his mother’s favorite colors, hanging teardrop lamps, bunches of blue roses, which Tony likewise told Steve was the Stark matriarch’s favorite flower variety. The raised dais where the classical band was already setting up for their first set was just as elegantly garbed. Everyone in attendance was dressed to impress and mingling languidly amongst themselves.

Tony, touching Steve in the elbow, motioned towards the fringes of the dancefloor and said, “come on—there’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.”

“Tony, if it’s a girl you’re looking for me to date—“

“—no, it’s _not_ that. I know how you detest those. I’d like you to meet a friend,” clarified Tony, leading Steve towards the direction of an unassuming man of slight build with wild brown curls, glasses and an understated suit that would have looked more apt for daywear in the office than a formal black-tie event. “Steve Rogers, may I introduce Dr. Bruce Banner? Dr. Banner, this is Steve Rogers.”

The blonde beefy man and the modest-looking doctor shook hands with small smiles on their respective faces. “It’s _awesome_ to finally meet you, Steve. I’ve heard so much about you. You, Sir, are a legend in the SI offices as _The Man Who Successfully Cockblocked the Great Tony Stark_ ,” Bruce said in his soft-spoken voice. To someone who didn’t know Bruce, the guy would seem like he had never been angry a day in his life. No one would suspect that the unassuming, nondescript doctor held within his frame a pretty explosive temper.

“Oh I wouldn’t know about the _successful_ part seeing as there’s still three days left in the Challenge,” answered Steve, coloring a bit because of Bruce’s estimation. “How’s your office pool looking like?”

“ _Really_? While _I’m_ standing here, not two feet away from you, you talk about the office pool that put wagers on my currently inactive sex life and waits with bated breath for me to fall off the wagon,” commented Tony, unimpressed.

Bruce ignored Tony and answered, “like a veritable nest egg. I lost some money on Day 2, but like you said, there’s still three days left on the Challenge and a _lot_ can happen in three days.”

“Thanks a lot, Banner,” Tony piped up, unmistakable sarcasm in his voice. “Well, since I have asses to kiss and egos to stroke around these parts, I’m gonna leave my date with you for just a mo, Brucie-bear. Keep an eye on him for me; make sure he’s not spirited away by a rich spinster or a clingy supermodel, yeah?” Then to Steve, Tony said, “I know how uncomfortable you are with socializing, so I’ll spare you. I’ll just make a quick circuit, do my civic duty, and I promise to hurry back to you, all right, gorgeous?” Tony blew Steve a kiss as he was walking away.

Steve’s only response was an amused shake of his head. And he fell back into easy conversation with Bruce.

Tony’s quick circuit didn’t turn out to be so quick, after all, as there _were_ people worth greeting and conversing with, interspersed in the rabble. Tony was still making his rounds when the speeches memorializing his mother began.

Maria Carbonell Stark was truly a one-of-a-kind lady. She was also a scientist in her own right, having started out in the field of genetic research. It was in one of the science summits in the early ‘80s where she met Howard Stark, then fifteen years her senior, and she was quickly smitten by his smarts and magnetism. They had what could be described as a sort of whirlwind romance and were married barely three months since they’d met. Maria was a compassionate, kind and down-to-earth woman, even though she, herself, had been born to money. Even before her union with Tony’s father, she was already active in a lot of charities, advocacies and the Peace Corps, and her passion for these causes only intensified after she married the tech magnate.

Foundation beneficiaries also spoke to honor the Stark matriarch and thank the Foundation’s founder and president, Tony Stark, and his contribution to advancing their causes in his mother’s name.

Tony only occasionally smiled through all these speeches as he, himself, was immersed in the memory of his beloved mother. Maria Stark’s compassion was not only for the poor, unfortunate souls of the world because the first recipient of her boundless kindness and love was none other than her only son. Growing up, Maria was a constant presence in Tony’s life—ever supportive and encouraging. What his father lacked in affection and involvement in young Tony’s life was more than made up for by Maria. She never missed a birthday, PTA meeting, recital, Show-and-Tell, not one wounded knee, baby tooth, nightmare, school bus send-off on the first day of school, recognition day, award, failed or successful prototype of Tony’s youthful inventions. Maria saw and was present for them all.

The more that Tony loved and adored his mother, the more he hated his father—his father, Howard, who was never there, not for his long-suffering wife or his son. Tony had never stopped hating his father, not when Maria Stark’s death was Howard Stark’s fault…

“I’ve always been somewhat afraid of that look,” Lt. Col. James Rhodes said as he suddenly popped up beside Tony, intruding into the brunette’s thoughts.

Tony looked crossly at his best friend and asked, “what look?”

“The look that says you couldn’t be planning anything good in that big brain of yours,” replied Rhodey. “So, no date tonight, huh?”

“Speak for yourself—I _have_ a date,” Tony clarified, defensively. He knew Carol, Rhodey’s fiancée, couldn’t make it as she was on her way to the west coast for a business trip. “I’m having Bruce babysit my date while I make a quick circuit.”

“You’re _kidding_ ; you brought _Steve_ as your date?!” Rhodey asked, flabbergasted. “He agreed to go on a _date_ with you?”

“You’d be out of your fucking mind if you decline a date with _me_ ,” Tony countered. “Which you did… _repeatedly_ , back when we were in MIT—if memory serves me right.”

“Good thing, too, ‘cause you wouldn’t know what to do with a scorchin’ hot piece of ass like _this_ ,” Rhodey bragged, motioning towards himself. “You got him to agree to go on a date with you and yet you foist him to be Bruce’s problem…”

“I was going to go back to him after I’ve kissed enough asses,” reasoned Tony, rolling his eyes in irritation before taking a deep gulp of his dry martini.

Rhodey turned towards him, closely studying him wordlessly. Tony let him for a while, but got annoyed with it eventually and demanded: “what? What are you looking at me like that for, Rhodes?”

“You _like_ him,” concluded Rhodey, fighting a smile off his face.

“Of course, I like him—I mean, have you, by any chance, _seen_ him?” Tony admitted. Rhodey wasn’t exactly telling him something he didn’t know. Steve was gorgeous, and of course, Tony would want to tap that ass. A twenty-seven days-dry spell wasn’t going to change that.

“No, no—you just don’t like to bang him; you actually _like him_ , like him,” Tony’s friend badgered.

Tony threw back what was left of his drink in one deep gulp before snorting, “the hell is _this_ drivel?” Goddamn, did that drink burn or what? “You know what? I think it’s time for some dancing. I’m gonna leave you to your crackpot illusions and get back to my date.”

The speeches were finally over, so Tony brazenly made his way to the raised dais to have a word with the band’s front man to request a song. After that, he went back to where Bruce and Steve stood, looking like the most awkward and the hottest wallflower, respectively.

As the opening strains to the _Phantom of the Opera_ song _Think of Me_ started playing, the lights in the ballroom dimmed dramatically.

“Come on,” Tony tugged at Steve’s wrist with a cock of his head.

“W—what, what… Where?”

“We’re dancing.”

“Tony, I—I _can’t_ … I don’t know how to dance.” Steve pulled his hand back, resisting Tony. Even in the dim light of the ballroom, the blonde’s look of utter horror was unmistakable.

“Then, lucky for you that I do.” He wasn’t going to take _No_ for an answer. Steve, albeit hesitant and horrified, dragged his feet after Tony to the empty ballroom dancefloor. “What’s a date in a gala without dancing anyway?” He joked but, schooling his face into seriousness, continued, “it’s a waltz. Just follow my lead, and you should be all right.” He placed their hands where they should be and with nods of his head, signaled for Steve to follow his lead.

“This was my mother’s favorite song. She, herself, taught me how to waltz to this song when I was young. Then, she had me take dance lessons for the rest,” recounted Tony as they moved the length and breadth of the dancefloor. Their faces were thrown in alternating light and shadow as they danced.

“You took _dance lessons_?” Steve asked, to try to distract himself from the fact they were dancing in the middle of a ballroom in front of a shit ton of people.

“Regrettably,” sighed Tony. “But when my mother asked me to, I indulged her. There weren’t that many things that I denied her if she asked. So yeah, when she said I should take dance lessons to learn rhumba and tango and whatnot, I did it.”

Steve tittered at that. _Tittered_. The asshole. And Rhodey accused Tony of liking him?!

“From all of those speeches, your mother sounds like she was an amazing woman,” commented Steve.

“She was,” Tony confirmed. “You’re probably wondering how a compassionate and kind woman like her could’ve raised a sleaze-bag like me, right?”

Steve’s brows furrowed before he averted his gaze, and that was how Tony confirmed that the blonde was thinking it. Subconsciously if not outrightly. Steve was correct; he really was a shit liar.

“Unfortunately, I am my father’s son as much as I was hers. And my father was…he was an uncaring jackass—I think I already told you this, but my father was a neglectful, stone cold, calculating man. He never told me he loved me. He never even told me he _liked_ me,” described Tony, still keeping to the rhythm of the song as if he wasn’t describing his own father’s treatment but the weather outside. Tony was good at compartmentalizing his emotions like that. He had perfected being impersonal when it came to the subject of his life and his past. That came with the territory of having mostly shallow relations with other people. “That was well and good—I couldn’t care less what the asshat thought of me, but in my book, his treatment of my mother was unforgivable.

“And I guess, that’s largely the reason why I’m not a big believer of love and relationships. Because my mother loved my father with all her heart and soul, but she was only his trophy wife, someone to keep his house, give him an heir. Nothing more. He never, not once, returned the love and affection that she had for him. He was my mother’s one great love and greatest heartbreak at the same time,” said Tony, allowing himself for the first time in a long time to feel something for his beloved mother, while he and Steve were keeping step to the tempo of her favorite song.

“I loved her fiercely to make up for the love my father never showed her. But it just wasn’t the same. She never stopped pining for him.

“They were together in the car crash, but my drunk-driving father died on impact. And it was as if my mom knew that he didn’t make it, so she succumbed after a three-day coma,” Tony recounted for the benefit of a silent Steve. “Even in death, she still chose to be with that bastard over me.

“And I told myself, I will never let my mother’s story be mine, too. I will never give any one person that much power to break me. I allowed myself fleeting intimacy, superficial connections, a poor substitute for love—I know, but I’m not making the same mistake that my mom made. I’m letting them have my body, but there ain’t no way they’re getting my heart,” said Tony distantly, as if he was back to that day about ten years ago when he buried his parents. For a moment, he let himself stay in that headspace, but Steve’s warm hand giving his a grounding squeeze pulled him back to the present.

He scowled, realizing the words that had been coming out of his mouth for the last two minutes. Why did he tell _Steve_ , of all people, that? It was something that even Rhodey and Pepper didn’t know about. But here he was, laying it on Steve. Sometimes, he really hated having a defective brain-to-mouth filter.

As if waking up from a dream, Tony froze in step and looked around at the dancefloor where only a handful of couples had followed their lead to dance. Pulling back his hands off of Steve, Tony looked at the blonde, uncertain and a tad afraid of what he might find on Steve’s face.

Thankfully, the song was coming to an end, and Steve didn’t have pity writ on his face. In fact, Steve’s blue orbs shone as if he was seeing Tony for the first time. To a certain extent, he was because Tony had never been this candid with anyone else before. He didn’t know what compelled him to say these things to Steve. But there was no taking the words back any longer.

Stepping away from his partner and walking off the dancefloor with Steve close behind him, Tony wracked his brains for some kind of justification _why_ he had told Steve those things, and he hoped to the cosmos it had nothing to do with what Rhodey was just telling him.

“So…” Clearing his throat, Tony segued in effort to make light of the situation after they left the dancefloor. “What did you think of Bruce?”


	15. DAYS 28 - 30

Steve had had a late night the night before with the _Maria Stark Foundation_ Gala where he accompanied Tony, but he was mighty glad he didn’t pass up the opportunity to join the impromptu party in Thor and Jane’s place when they’d invited everyone in the building that morning.

“We’re expecting,” Thor announced in his booming voice, breathy with hard-to-conceal excitement, to the group of building tenants gathered in their modest but comfortable living room. Jane glowed, a smile lighting up her face. And everyone in the room either gasped, cooed or started talking excitedly.

“Oh my God! That’s great news. How far along are you?” Wanda squealed, wrapping Jane in an embrace.

“Eight weeks. I’m delayed for some time already, so I had my suspicions. That’s why I didn’t drink during Scott’s surprise birthday party,” answered Jane, looking at each and every excited face in their little huddle. “I didn’t want to jinx it, so I thought we should get a doctor’s confirmation first.”

Clint raised his own paper cup and intoned, “you should be thinking of names as early as now. Oh and if you need help redecorating your place to prepare for the little one, I’m pretty handy with a hammer and a paint roller. Just give me a heads-up.”

“I would love to help, too,” Phil offered and it was echoed by Wanda as well.

“Thank you, guys. We just might take you up on that,” said Jane, squeezing Thor’s hand back.

“As for the baby shower, we’ve got that covered,” one of Jane’s friends, Lianne Halliwell, spoke in behalf of their group. She’d caught Steve’s eye when Jane introduced them earlier, but, a little over an hour later, Steve was still in the process of steeling his resolve to ask Lianne to dinner or even just to get coffee.

“Congratulations, Janey. I have a feeling you’d make an awesome mom,” commended Tony with a raise of his own paper cup of innocent lemon iced tea.

“God—after two years of trying…this is it, and I’m half-terrified and half-excited, you know?” Jane visibly trembled with emotion.

The smile on Tony’s face nagged at Steve’s focus, however, taking his mind away from psyching himself up to approach Lianne. Tony’s smile was still as playful and irritatingly striking as ever, but there was a hint of sadness to it. Steve knew that the subject of motherhood was a bit of a sore one for the brunette, what with the grand memorial in remembrance of Tony’s mother that they’d just been to the previous evening.

To say that Steve was floored with what Tony had deigned to tell him during the gala was an understatement. The blonde was stunned, sympathetic, confused, troubled, guilty and everything else that was possible to feel considering the big reveal regarding Tony’s past last night that Steve, for all of his lunchtime research on his new neighbor, didn’t know—couldn’t have possibly known—from the press releases he’d read.

Perhaps Steve _had_ been hasty to judge Tony and his lifestyle when the blonde had only a peephole through which to see Tony’s fuck-anything-that-moves, confident, sarcastic, attitude. Because wasn’t it always so? Easy to judge someone based only on what you can see and what you _think_ you know about them.

The memory of the _‘sleaze’_ comment out of Steve’s lips particularly stung and troubled him, but it wasn’t as if he could un-say what’s already been said.

In a way, he and Tony weren’t all that different from each other. They were both burned and their respective experiences had traumatized them, and in Tony’s case, it revolutionized his whole way of thinking. Because while Steve had been undeniably hurt by what his ex had done to him, he remained optimistic that the right one was coming and that a failed relationship wasn’t going to deter him from finding the right partner. Whereas Tony had his beloved mother’s experience to learn from, and it caused a completely opposite reaction in him: it made him cynical about love, fully believing that it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Steve had never wanted to try to change anyone’s mind about something more than he did now. But his neighbor was entitled to his own opinion, and Steve didn’t really know why he wanted to change Tony’s mind to begin with.

Maybe because knowing everything that he knew now, Steve could very well say that Tony _was_ capable of more than just meaningless, freaky sexual encounters. He was capable—and deserving—of affection, care and love.

Or maybe, for all of Tony’s devil-may-care, take-no-prisoners, unapologetic posture about love, he was lonely and that loneliness couldn’t possibly be sated by fleeting, empty, purely physical associations.

Or both.

Because Tony could go on and on about the perils of love, and he would be correct in some of them, but looking at Thor and Jane’s clasped hands, loving stares reserved only for each other and contented smiles on their faces because of the fulfillment of their long-prayed-for wish, Steve knew that the perks far outweighed the perils.   

He just wished Tony could somehow see that, too.

Shaking himself inwardly, Steve tried to get his mind off Tony and back to trying to muster up enough brass to initiate a conversation with Lianne and maybe get a dinner date schedule. He should stop concerning himself with things which weren’t supposed to be his concern. Tony was his own person and there wasn’t anything to be had, trying to get Tony to see things his way.

“I’m very happy for you and Thor, Jane. And I agree with Tony. You and Thor would be awesome parents,” Steve offered his own congratulations. From out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lianne giving him a shy smile.

He ought to really get off his ass and ask her already!

It was some time later when Steve was poking around in the cooler in the kitchen for a bottle of root beer that Tony’s hip casually nudged his. Steve angled his body to be able to look at the other man while he kept rooting around in the ice chest.

“If you don’t get a move on, she’s gonna think you’re not interested, and you’d be burned even before you get to open your maw to ask,” hissed Tony, sneaking a gulp of soda from the perspiring bottle in his own hand.

“What?”

“Lianne,” mouthed Tony. “If you like her, you should go ask her out or something. She’s not a mind reader. She’s not gonna know that you’re interested unless you ask,” Tony urged, nodding towards the woman in question. “You don’t like your friends setting you up on dates, and here you are looking at a girl like a starving man looks at a buffet table, and you don’t even make a move on her! The hell are you waiting for, man?”

“I’m getting there, OK? Go away, you’re making me nervous,” hissed Steve back, mock kicking at Tony to get the latter to lay off teasing him.

Tony smiled at him, half-teasing and half-coy, then winked at him before walking away. Steve stared at Tony’s retreating back with a slight shake of his head.

He was still intently looking for a root beer in the cooler when someone piped up from behind him: “is there any orange soda left, by any chance?”

It was Lianne, standing behind him with a small smile on her face and a twinkle in her arresting silver-gray eyes. Steve, for a moment, forgot what it was she had asked. And then, recovering, said: “I think there’s still some left. How many do you want?”

“Just one. Thanks.”

Giving up on his root beer entirely, Steve straightened up to hand her a can of her desired beverage. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” she said again, but Steve didn’t point it out. Now was not the time to be a wiseass. “So, how long have you and the Odinson couple been neighbors in the building?”

“A little over two years now. They were newly-weds when they moved in,” answered Steve. And _he_ was still happily in a relationship with his ex at that time, too. Until Sharon’s cheating had come to the fore barely two months after that, and she’d completely moved out not even a month later.

“Those two’ve come a long way. And now…parenthood. It’s gonna be a new—but not unwelcome—challenge for them,” Lianne wistfully said.

“How long have you known them—Thor and Jane?”

“Too long,” joked Lianne with a laugh as mellifluous as tinkling bells. She popped the tab on her canned orange soda and took a small sip. “I’ve known Jane since high school and I’ve known Thor since we’d been introduced when those two started becoming serious after Thor moved to the US from Norway to be closer to Jane.”

“You’re saying they started out in a long distance relationship?”

“Yeah. Theirs is a love story for the ages. It’s gonna be an interesting tale to tell their children, that’s for sure,” remarked Lianne, taking another dainty sip of her drink.

“I didn’t know that about them,” admitted Steve, nodding knowingly. “What about you? Are you also married?” He wanted to pump his fist that he was able to successfully steer the conversation that way. And without stammering or getting tongue-tied, too. He wanted to poke Tony and point it out to exemplify that he wasn’t a complete dating or flirting moron, after all.

“ _Good_ segue,” teased Lianne with a twinkle in her eye again. “Very smooth.”

Steve ruined his hard-earned composure by blushing.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a tease,” apologized Lianne, seemingly properly contrite. “I’m not married. And I’m not seeing anyone right now, too.”

Tremendous! “Yeah? Well I was hoping I could maybe invite you to dinner…or maybe coffee…or something—“ It seemed his _Beginner’s Luck_ was fast running out.

“Which is it really, Steve? Dinner, coffee or something?” It wasn’t Lianne fault that Steve was such a spaz!

“Whe—uh, you, um—“ Again, he asked no one in particular how _Tony_ could be so good at this, and he was just so laughably awkward. He’d fought in warzones, killed people and dealt with shady personalities in his job all the time, and he couldn’t even ask a girl properly out on a date. How was this his life?

He shrugged, gesturing to Lianne that it was her choice.

“How about coffee on Tuesday then?”

Tuesday was the final day of Tony’s Celibacy Challenge. And he found himself hesitating to accept Lianne’s offer. He knew he should because he was the one who initiated the invitation, after all, but he was really hoping he could celebrate the momentous milestone with the engineer, because knowing Tony, it was going to be a celebration for the books.

He couldn’t believe he was ready to turn down a coffee date with a girl he had thought was interesting because he was looking to spend the day with _Tony_!

Lianne must have read through his hesitation fairly quickly, and she amended the offer, “if Tuesday is not a good day, I’m also free on Thursday—if that would work better for you?”

Thursday was _perfect_. “Thursday’s great.”

“Great,” echoed Lianne, whipping her phone out so they could exchange numbers and text each other about that coffee.

When Lianne walked away from him, Steve saw Tony make a thumb’s up and an over-the-top duck face at him, guessing that the short ice chest encounter ended well. Steve just answered the engineer by blowing a childish raspberry to hide a secret smile.

-0-0-0-

“Any special plans tomorrow night to celebrate your success then?”

“Well, you know, I thought a nice dinner with my babysitter-minder isn’t a bad place to start. So, how about it, Steve? Unless… you have a _hawt date_ tomorrow or something?” Wink. Eyebrow wag.

“Oh I’m free tomorrow.”

“When did you set the dinner with Jane’s friend then?”

“We’re seeing each other on Thursday. And it’s only _coffee_ —not dinner.”

“That’s a start, at least. My dating apprentice setting a coffee jaunt with a woman he likes by himself… I think my work here is done. I say go forth, go nuts, go crazy. I, myself, _am_ thinking of setting something up with _Nick_ as soon as possible—you know, Bowling Prodigy, The One that Got Away Nick, remember him?”

“Yeah, but don’t set anything on Wednesday, Tony, OK?”

“Why? What’s on Wednesday?”

“You’ll see.”

“Think you’re being mysterious, huh?”

“J—just…just keep your Wednesday open, all right?”

“Fine, fine…”

-0-0-0-

Steve looked up from the magazine he was reading while seated in the reception area of the Stark _Industries_ offices, waiting for Tony, when the man himself walked into the area with a wide grin, an arrogant strut and ostentatious waves to an otherwise empty reception area. He blew a kiss to his receptionist, and the young woman preened at her boss’ gesture.

Pumping his fists and clasping them together in a gesture of victory, he greeted Steve, “Day 30, baby! Day _fucking_ 30!” He gave a great growl of triumph and stood before Steve, a haughty grin on his good-looking face. “Dint think I’d make it to this day, dintcha?”

“Not gonna lie. I had my moments of doubt,” admitted Steve, reminiscent of their conversation just a fortnight ago. “But I knew you were the type who could do anything you set your mind to,” he continued by way of a save. And it was the truth, too. He felt like he had gotten to know Tony so much better this past month, and Tony really was stubborn and bull-headed enough to overcome any hurdle if he set his mind to it.

“Damn right,” confirmed Tony, cocking his head towards the elevators by way of invitation to Steve that they should get going. The night was young and they have something momentous to celebrate after all. “So what kind of celebration are we in the mood for?”

“I hope it’s nothing too wild or too grandiose—“

“—so dinner at the _Eiffel Tower_ is out of the question then?—”

“—and it’s a _weeknight_ , and we have an early day tomorrow, so I don’t think we can get hammered either—“

“—and I _was_ hoping that we could, since it’s the best way to celebrate—“

“—maybe a nice dinner then? In some favorite restaurant of yours that serves unpronounceable food with outrageous prices,” joked Steve with an answering wink just as the elevator doors opened for the two men.

“Still can’t let that go, can you?” Tony asked with an incredulous shake of his head. “It’s not my fault that I have impeccable tastes, Steve. Don’t forget that I’ve provided you with an indispensable advantage going back into the dating scene here by taking you to these awesome restaurants to see how the more suave and savvy half does it. Goodness knows you can’t always take your dates to gorge on burgers and fries every damn time!”

“We off to _Vertice_ then?” Steve asked as soon as they had both closed the car doors and they were strapping themselves in Tony’s car.

“Nah,” disagreed Tony. “We should spice things up. I’m thinking the marina.” The brunette, pursing his lips, pulled out of the curb to join the fray of the early evening midtown traffic.

“ _The Marina_? Where’s that restaurant at?” Steve asked.

“No, I meant the marina as in the _docks_.”

“What—like a high-end Surf ‘n Turf joint or something?” Steve asked by way of follow up but Tony didn’t answer or clarify anymore. Steve guessed he should just wait and see where Tony intended to celebrate. After all, the Challenge’s conclusion was his victory and not Steve’s.

As it turned out, Tony didn’t have a high-end seafood restaurant located at the marina in mind. Tony had intended to celebrate on a pearl-white, 250-foot, tall as a three-story building, M75 Global Explorer luxury yacht, which before that day, Steve had never even seen outside of a television screen.

Steve’s mouth fell open in awe: first, it was the silver limousine on the way to the _Maria Stark Foundation_ gala and now, this. Was it perhaps Tony’s life’s mission to take Steve aboard these luxury vehicles and take some kind of sick pleasure in watching Steve’s eyes bug out?

“Whose boat is this, Tony?” Steve asked, breathlessly. He could only imagine how wide his eyes must be, trying to take in every detail of the amazing vessel.

“Duh. It’s _mine_. Brand spankin’ new,” said Tony with pride, making his way up the yacht’s boarding ramp and turning every so often to make sure that Steve was following him. “For the record, this is what happens when I don’t have sex to occupy me—I go on an impulse buying spree.”

“You bought a _yacht_ on a _whim_?” The engineer must be out of his damn mind!

“But this is not just _any_ yacht,” clarified Tony. “This is a one-off vessel with its own Jacuzzi, pool, gym and massive, customized rooms including a spacious dining room, recreation room, an on-board beach club that comes complete with a sauna, bathroom, bar area, and shaded lounge, and a viewing platform that offers a great view of the surroundings. This can accommodate up to 36 guests, and I can even have the large upper deck customized for a helipad, if I want to,” described Tony proudly, motioning towards the rear of the vessel where Steve presumed the on-board beach club deck was located.

“But, seeing as my personal chopper is en route to Nevada to deposit Rhodey so he could be reunited with his lady love, I had _something else_ set up on the upper deck for us,” said Tony, leading the way to the stairs.

Steve couldn’t hold back his excitement. But he never would have guessed in a million years what awaited them on the upper deck of Tony’s yacht:

The luxury yacht’s upper deck-cum-helipad now boasted of a backyard barbeque set-up, complete with a wooden garden set, a heavy-duty grill where chicken quarters, beef patties, pork ribs, and ears of corn were already spitting and smoking, a boom box playing the Beach Boys, an ice chest of beer and soda, and a brightly-lit solar lantern since night was already fast approaching.

“How’s this for a celebration?” Tony asked, awaiting any verbal reaction from Steve regarding their dinner arrangements. “I thought we could find a middle ground about dinner—my impeccable standards are satisfied, and your hankering for a laidback setting is satisfied… everybody’s happy.”

“Tony, this is…” How was he supposed to describe it without sounding like a besotted and primping pre-pubescent high school girl? It really was amazing. Nobody’s ever done something like this for him before—be this considerate of what he wanted and what he found comfortable. If there ever was a solid and infallible one piece of evidence about Tony’s affectionate nature, this was it. “This is… _amazing_.” _You are amazing,_ Steve was sorely tempted to add just to disconcert Tony, and maybe Steve would be able to get back at his neighbor for always rendering _him_ dumbstruck and speechless.

They served themselves, filling their paper plates with potato salad, grilled corn, rack of ribs or chicken barbeque. Steve found the _Make-Your-Own-Burger_ corner of the wooden table an absolute hoot, building a burger with the works: garlic mayonnaise, ketchup, honey mustard, tomatoes, cheddar and cream cheese, pickles, onion, bacon strips and lettuce. There were also less conventional burger toppings and sauces to choose from like alfalfa sprouts, feta cheese, avocado slices, chili, genoa salami, scallions, chopped chives, fried eggs, truffle aioli, sauerkraut, and basil pesto.

Backyard affairs like this brought back a lot of memories from when he and Bucky were growing up in their Brooklyn community. The Barneses used to invite Steve and his mother to a lot of these backyard barbecues.

None of them was held on the upper deck of a luxury yacht, though, so this was a considerable level up from that. Regardless, those childhood affairs weren’t any less special. 

“Grew up with a lot of these, did you?” Tony asked, chewing through a generous bite of his custom-made burger, as if reading the fond expression Steve knew was plastered on his face.

“A lot of what? Oh you mean, backyard barbeques?” Steve licked his fingers of excess sauce as he placed his half-eaten burger back on his paper plate, having had another healthy bite of it. “Me and my mom got invited to a lot, but mostly it was Bucky’s parents who would have these—nearly every other week, and yeah, they always invited us. What about you?”

“Not a lot, actually. But whenever we did, it was always a special affair. We ate in posh restaurants as common practice and yet held backyard barbeques very infrequently, making them extremely special occasions—I know, we’re weird…” Tony shrugged. “Jarvis used to cook a mean grilled beef patty, and it was always him who would make preparations for when we had backyard barbeques in the north garden of the mansion where I grew up. He actually used to set-up _exactly_ like this,” he continued, motioning towards their own set-up on the yacht deck.

“You know, if Jarvis were around, he would be the first to clutch at his chest, surprised, that I was able to finish the Challenge at all,” mused Tony, taking a deep inhale of his beer to wash down his food.

“Why?”

“He always said I had poor impulse control, I mean—yeah, _case in point_.” Tony gestured towards the rest of the yacht. “That’s just how I am, I guess. He always said I was the type to do whatever the hell I wanted to do or whatever felt good without thought for the repercussions. So, you know, the fact that I lasted _thirty days_ denying myself something I want and find pleasure in—‘s like the equivalent of me getting a fucking Nobel Prize or something,” remarked the engineer with a powerful snort.

“I never knew Jarvis, but _I_ think he would be proud of you—not only for proving him wrong and hurdling the Challenge, but for the other things you’ve accomplished, Tony,” Steve pointed out, planting his elbows on the edge of the wooden table and leaning towards his companion. Because it couldn’t be denied that Steve was in the presence of a pretty accomplished, self-made man, who had hurdled his lonely childhood, his father’s negligence, his parent’s accident, his own kidnapping and near-death, and had founded his own company, established a charity foundation that helped thousands, and _completely_ changed Steve’s initial estimation of him.

“But I’m still a _sleaze_ , right?” Tony joked with a lopsided grin.

Rolling his blue eyes, Steve shook his head and said: “when are you ever gonna let that go?”

“If… you tell me what’s happening tomorrow,” bargained the brunette.

“Huh?”

“You told me yesterday to keep Wednesday—that’s _tomorrow_ , open. What’s up? What’s with tomorrow?” Tony started licking his digits and smacking his lips without a care in the world, and Steve was momentarily distracted by it that Tony said, “ _Steeeeeve_ —earth to Steve,” to snap him out of it.

“Oh it’s, uh, it’s nothing. I just thought I’d invite you to a Challenge Complete Celebration that’s _my_ treat,” explained Steve, not wanting to make a big deal out of it.

“ _Oooohh_ , interesting. But is whatever you’re planning gonna top this?” Tony teased, gesturing towards their sweet set-up on the yacht deck. The vessel had pulled out of the marina to cruise lazily on Upper Bay. The lights on the tall skyscrapers on both sides of the bay twinkled and shone in the early evening darkness. Wind whipped blonde and brown locks as the yacht sliced through the bay’s water made velvety dark by the sky it reflected.

“Tony, this isn’t a _competition_ ,” deflected Steve, stealing a glance at the other man as he threw his head back to take a gulp of his beer. “I just thought that it’s the least I can do to make it up to you after the hell you’ve been through, completing the dare.”

“I hope you got night after night of quality sleep, pushing nine to ten hours, in exchange for my hell, buddy,” countered Tony with amusement, which based on his tone, wasn’t meant to be sarcastic but playful. 

The weird part of it was that Steve really didn’t get all that much quality sleep these past thirty days. He slept as he usually did and sometimes stayed up late, thinking about Tony, the dates referred by his friends, Sharon, Tony, his work, his pending expense reports, Tony, Captain, his awkwardness when it came to dating, Tony, his sexuality that was now being put in question, Tony…

On Steve’s part, it would seem that the Celibacy Challenge didn’t quite achieve the purpose for which it was devised, but he figured, he didn’t have to tell Tony that.

“I got enough,” answered Steve defensively, then changing the topic, continued, “so I’d still be swinging by your office tomorrow after work, OK?”

“Swing away,” confirmed the brunette, taking a monster bite out of his burger and all the while having a childish smile on his face.

They talked about Tony’s plans for the yacht, Steve’s plans for his coffee outing with Jane’s friend, Lianne, additional pet advocacies for the _Maria Stark Foundation_ , and Steve’s present work woes of trawling for dirt on shady personalities and charming the Accounting department to get his mountain of pending reimbursable released. There were a lot of animated hand gestures, rude jokes, and loud laughter from the deck’s occupants that early evening matured into late night as if time was both at a standstill and flying swiftly by.

It was when it was Steve’s turn to ask Tony about how things were at his work that Tony’s face lit up into a mischievous smile and he said: “which reminds me! You will never guess who gave the office a call today to ask for a business appointment with me.”

“Who?” Steve asked through a mouthful of potatoes and corn.

“Come on, just try to make a guess…” Tony encouraged to which Steve’s only reply was a dispassionate shrug.

“ _Everett Ross_ ,” enunciated Tony with a hard-to-read twinkle in his luminescent brown eyes. “I must have popped a vein when Pepper told me he’d tried to set something up.”

“What could that degenerate _semen-breath_ want from you?!”

“ _Language_ , Rogers!” Tony mock chastised, fighting down a smile. “Apparently, he wanted to run a potential business venture by me, so he wanted to see my earliest availability to meet with him. I told Pepper to tell him, the next time he calls, to take a fucking hike in the most creative way possible. I just might ask our IT department for some kind of record when that conversation happens because it would be nice to hear someone, who isn’t me, get torn a new one by Pepper, for a change.” 

Steve fought down his own small smile, imagining how Pepper was going to carry out that directive. He felt his heart swell that, at the very least, Tony was on his side in the matter of Everett Ross. That motherfu—

“Hey!” Tony suddenly said like he was just realizing something. “You wanna try out the pool table after we’re done with dinner?” His smile was a cross between mischievous and excited. It made his face look even younger. And even more radiantly handsome if that was even possible.

The blonde’s face broke into a wide, unadulterated grin and answered without reservations: “sure, Tony.”

As the vessel plowed on through the Upper Bay’s waters with their deck and Tony’s good-humored face only sparsely lit by the lantern and the passing twinkling lights, Steve found himself half-wishing that the night would never end.


	16. CHALLENGE COMPLETE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens to The Incentive now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit Scene found here. Tread with caution, ye who wants to stay pure...  
> \-----

Though the thirty-day challenge was now over, Steve had been a fixture in the SI reception area waiting for Tony after work that to see the tall blonde there on the thirty-first day was more commonplace than weird. Pepper greeted him as always and sent them off on their way with joking jibes directed at Tony. The ride to where Steve was going to treat him to a Challenge Complete Celebration was also familiar and comfortable now; they talked about the traffic, SI’s current projects, if Everett Ross had tried calling again, and where it was they were currently headed.

Steve, of course, kept mysteriously mum about it.

At the outskirts of midtown, they parked in a public space and made their way to a vintage brownstone building, climbed its rickety elevator to the highest level it could go and took the narrow stairwell the rest of the way and a stepladder to an access hatch on the ceiling.

It was twilight by the time that they were both standing on the roof deck of the brownstone which overlooked other stout buildings of the New York suburbs. Tony wanted to ask if that was it—they went through all that trouble to see the uninteresting rooftops of the suburban tenements and other apartment buildings—when Steve called him towards the other side of the rooftop where the majestic vista of midtown added color to the steadily darkening sky with sharp splashes of orange, pink, red and purple as the dying sun sunk behind the buildings.

The two watched the rest of the sunset in companionable silence until, one by one, the lights on the buildings, LED advert screens, streetlights, floodlights, establishments’ neon signs, and billboards blinked open along with their rooftop’s fairy lights strung up on makeshift poles on the perimeter of the rooftop, converging on a central pole. The fairy lights illuminated two outdoor, wooden lounge chairs flanking a cooler and a picnic basket.

Steve sat down on a lounge chair, opened both the cooler and the basket and rooted around in them, whipping out a chilled bottle of champagne and two glass flutes. He handed the glasses to Tony and set about opening the bubbly.

Tony tried to avert his eyes away from the tip of Steve’s tongue peeking out from between his lips and the blonde’s flexing biceps as the champagne bottle proved tricky to open. He was jarred out of his trance-like observation of the other man when the bottle of bubbly was finally opened with a loud pop.

“It’s not a yacht deck, but I thought you’d still like to see this view,” said Steve with a small smile, pouring the champagne both for himself and for Tony. “Buck and I are friends with the owner of the building. We like hanging out here just to relax and shoot the breeze.”

“It’s an awesome space,” admitted Tony, taking a sip of the bubbly drink which he found sweet and uplifting. “Have you taken all of your girlfriends here?” Tony asked with a teasing grin.

“No,” denied Steve. “I’ve never taken anyone else here. Bucky’s taken Natasha, though.”

“Wait…not even your ex of three years?” Tony queried. “Why not?”

Shrugging, Steve answered, “I don’t know. I had numerous plans to take her, but it never happened. She was busy, or she was not in the mood. Plus, you know, it became clear to me in the course of the relationship that she wasn’t the type to enjoy things like this so I just stopped trying to schedule something to take her,” explained the blonde, taking another distracted sip of his champagne.

“What’s in the basket, then?” Tony asked, changing the topic fast.

“Just some sandwiches from a nearby deli that I really like—you know, BLT, salmon-feta, turkey-pickle, chili-chicken…you can have your pick. We have some potato chips, banana chips, and pork rinds, too. And some fruits—grapes, and strawberries. There’s champagne, soda and iced coffee,” enumerated Steve, rooting around the basket and cooler again.

“Wow—you came prepared,” commended Tony. “ _Iced coffee_ , huh?”

“Better than more beer or liquor,” defended his companion, unwrapping a sub sandwich to eat. “Besides, I know you love coffee…”

Steve was thoughtful like that, and again, Tony wanted to knock Sharon Carter on the back of her head for being a colossal idiot for letting this man slip though her fingers. What _was_ she thinking?!

“Thanks, um, I think I’ll have some turkey sandwich please,” Tony requested and Steve handed over his chosen sandwich variety. They ate their sandwiches and some chips in silence again, drinking in the sight of midtown bathed in light and the first few pinpricks of light in the evening firmament.

“So…” Steve began. “What became of your office pool since you successfully completed the challenge?”

Tony chortled at the reminder of the _Stark Industries_ office pool on the matter of the Celibacy Challenge. Everyone was dismayed, of course, since everyone was so sure that at some point before the end of the challenge, Tony was going to monumentally, and in the grandest fashion, fall off the wagon, so when it didn’t happen, everybody was pretty gobsmacked. There was no getting their money back—Tony wasn’t going to allow it, so they just congratulated their boss for a job well done before slinking back to their workstations, accounting their losses, and licking their wounds.

Pepper, Rhodey and Bruce, in particular, were pretty gracious losers, all things considered. They, themselves, were pretty psyched at Tony’s achievement. Tony knew better: the office pool was only begun as some kind of reverse psychology mechanism. The more there were naysayers putting their money in and betting on Tony’s failure, the more motivated Tony was to prove all of them wrong.

“No one won because I didn’t fall off the wagon. So the pool goes to me—I’m not about to let them get their money back after everything they’ve put me through betting that I’d fail, no,” Tony said with petulance. “I was thinking of putting the pool’s proceeds in the _Maria Stark Foundation_. Either that, or I divide the money between Cassie and Thor and Jane’s baby, put it in some kind of trust for the kids to use as additional college fund or something.” Tony wiped his mouth with a napkin before taking another bite of his turkey-pickle sub.

“ _Cassie_ —Scott’s kid, and the _Odinsons’ baby_?” Steve asked, astonished. “Why are you thinking of giving _them_ money; you hardly know them _or_ their parents…”

“I don’t personally know the _Foundation_ ’s beneficiaries either. But Scott, Thor and Jane are my neighbors, at least. Plus, I _know_ Cassie. We had a deep, existential conversation about _Crash Bandicoot_ during her dad’s surprise birthday party—and the kid’s smart and good-natured,” reasoned Tony, chewing intermittently. “I’d rather they get that money, I mean, the source and origin of those funds might be at the expense of my pride and self-image, but at least, they can make better use of it for their future.” Tony shrugged.

“That’s big of you,” observed Steve. “You know, Tony, I don’t think you realize this, but deep down, you’re a good guy—a big, sentimental _softie_ that’s hidden beneath layers of unapologetic, sarcastic, no-strings-attached playboy,” joked Steve, plucking a grape from the stem and popping it into his mouth where the beginnings of a shit-eating grin were visible.

Tony assumed a mock outraged face and demanded, “who you callin’ a _softie_ , you ass?! FYI, I am still the unapologetic sexual predator who’s just hit a few snags on my path to world domination by debauchery. _Nothing’s changed_.” And it was true, too. He may have rediscovered a lot of things about himself but the wireframe to him was still the same: he still believed in complication-free, temporary attachments. He was just a little bit more open and willing to widen his circle of trust now than he did before.

But as far as sex and fucking were concerned, he was the same Tony Stark. Love and relationships remained unwritten in his dictionary.

“So you haven’t changed your mind about monogamy and relationships?”

“ _Hell_. _No_ ,” said Tony with conviction. “Relationships may be for _some people_ , but I’m just not built like some people. Relationships aren’t for me,” he continued, fisting his sandwich wrapper into a tight ball and stuffing it back in the basket.

“Or _maybe_ that’s just because you haven’t met the right person,” Steve pressed, likewise, scrunching his sandwich wrapper into a ball.

Tony stole a glance at the other man from out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t that he had never thought of it before—the possibility of _The Right One_ walking around in the world out there, waiting for him to find them. And the more likely possibility that he’s met them already, or that they live in the same street, the same apartment building, say, right across the hall from his door… But every time he had a moment of weakness, he remembered his mother—his poor, pathetic mother who had loved one man all her life and who had never been loved back by that man. She had married her one great love, and they were together for decades and decades, but it was a relationship bathed in tears, clothed in suffering and jeweled with lies.

Tony had no use for such relationships—he had no use for _any_ relationship at all, apart from the relationships that have always worked for him. Sex has always worked for him. It was all he needed. All he could ever need.

Tony gave a short bark of laughter. “If the right person for me knows what’s good for them, they should stay the hell away. I don’t do _love_ , Steve; I’ve never been in love, and I don’t plan to if I can help it. No thirty-day Celibacy Challenge is going to change that.”

Before any of them could say anything else, a far-off fireworks display colored the velvety night sky. They both got up from the loungers to stand near the edge of the roof deck and watched the show. Again, a companionable silence reigned between the two men.

“Congratulations anyway, Tony, for successfully completing the Challenge,” Steve intoned, softly. There was something else in his tone of voice, but Tony couldn’t tell what it was, only that it was there.

“I can’t say that I enjoyed it,” teased Tony. “But I didn’t lie when I said that it sort of made me realize that there’s more to my willpower than I initially thought. And, you know, even at the risk of sounding repetitive, I guess I have you to thank for that.” Tony bumped his heels together and stuffed his hands in his trousers’ front pockets to hide any lingering gawkiness.

“There’s no need to thank me because, you know, the Challenge was devised with nothing but purely self-serving intentions in mind,” said Steve, rubbing the back of his head. “I only wanted to get some sleep, remember?”

Tony only hummed, distractedly, in acknowledgment. He was surprisingly contented with how his life was, currently. The Challenge was already over; he had succeeded and shown those naysayers that he was stronger than his sexual urges; he had money from the office pool that he was quite eager to set aside for Cassie and the Odinsons’ baby; and he had new friends to spend some of his evenings with instead of trolling the nightclubs by himself for potential lays. Pepper, Rhodey and Bruce wouldn’t hound him anymore about having meaningless sex night after night opining that all he was doing was to make himself a beacon for some sort of sexually transmitted illness.  

“Ready to collect on your incentive, then?” Steve asked, casually.

Tony looked at the other man quizzically, unsure as to what he was talking about. Incentive? What incentive?

And then it occurred to Tony. So suddenly it felt like being kneed in the crotch and punched in the schnozzle at the same time. Of course, _The Incentive_! The incentive that got Tony to agree to this travesty of a challenge in the first place. The incentive, which said that, should Tony complete the challenge, he got to have sex with Steve!

Shit. Tony couldn’t believe he had, for a moment there, actually forgotten about The Incentive.

“You know what, Steve? I’m gonna give you a free pass on this one,” said Tony, his face breaking into a wide smile to hide the sudden discomfort that bloomed in the center of his chest making it hard to breathe. “We, um, we don’t have to do it if you’re uncomfortable—which I know you are. So yeah, no—we don’t have to follow through with the incentive.”

If the words weren’t coming out of his own mouth in a steady stream of syllables, Tony wouldn’t have believed he was saying it. He was voluntarily letting go of what was probably his _only_ chance to have sex with his super-hot neighbor; he was letting go of what he had needled and cajoled Steve into agreeing to a month ago. He was, in effect, condoning the month-long cockblocking for fucking _nothing_!

What was fucking _wrong_ with him?!

“You _don’t_ want your incentive?” Steve asked, disbelievingly.

No, no, _no_ —Tony wanted it! Tony _needed_ it. He wanted it so bad he ached in his bones for it. This was the _only_ chance he was ever going to get with Steve Rogers. Of course, he wanted it! He’d not had sex for thirty fucking days for this! He _wanted_ it!

“I don’t want it if you’re not comfortable with it, Steve,” Tony found himself saying.

 _Shit_! When did this happen? _Shit_! Steve _was_ right! He’s become a big, fat _softie_! This was so wrong; this was _every shade_ of wrong. He didn’t endure blue balls only to let this go at the finish line—

“We should do it,” Steve said, almost in an imperceptible whisper.

Wait— _What_?! “What?” Tony must have misheard him. He was having this internal battle between the forces of his mind and the forces of his body that he must have just imagined what Steve had said.

“You held up your end of the bargain, and it’s only proper that I follow through with mine,” replied Steve with a casual cock of his head and a shrug. “Look Tony—I’m a man of my word. When we agreed on your incentive, I had every intention of holding my end of it should you hold up yours. You did your part; it’s my turn now,” explained the blonde as if all they were talking about was a deal made over who got to throw the trash out next time.

“A—are you…sure?” Tony couldn’t believe that they were talking about it and that Steve actually wanted it to happen.

“Yeah—I, uh, I am.” There was still uncertainty writ clearly in the blonde’s handsome face that the dimness of the night couldn’t mask. But the blonde squared his shoulders and clenched his jaw, steeling himself. “I’m sure, Tony.”

“We better get off this rooftop then.”

-0-0-0-

They climbed their apartment building’s staircase with their shoulders bumping every once in a while. They were both still unspeaking, content in the exploration of their thoughts and any remaining reservations they had regarding what they were about to do. The car ride on the way back home, too, was mostly spent in silence with only Tony’s car stereo providing much-needed respite from the noise of their own thoughts.

Tony, clenching his jaw, took the final stair step on the fifth floor where their neighboring apartments were. He was still internally debating with himself whether or not to keep dissuading Steve from following through on the incentive. The blonde was still clearly of two minds about it—mostly, uncomfortable and unsure, if his furrowed brows and frequent lip-biting were any indication.

“Steve, I’m gonna say it again,” Tony began against his better judgment. “If you’re uncomfortable, we don’t have to do this—we don’t have to do _anything_.” He didn’t know why he was even pushing to dissuade Steve. Shouldn’t he be encouraging the former soldier and reveling in the joy that he got to have this opportunity which he would never have otherwise?

“You don’t understand, Tony,” Steve asserted, facing him in the small hallway between their respective units. “It’s been a while since I was ever intimate with anyone. And even then, I’ve always had this nagging feeling at the back of my head that I’m, you know, a bit of an _underperformer_ —if you get my drift.

“And now, it’s worse because I actually have this… _fear_ of finding myself in that situation with someone else. I don’t want to be afraid of intimacy. I don’t want the shadow of my ex hounding me when the time comes that I want to have sex with someone I’m looking to try having a relationship with.

“ _You_ ’re going to help me with that. That’s why I _need_ this, Tony. I need you to show me how you do it. Then, maybe—you know, my prospects won’t pull a Sharon on me because I’m boring in bed or something,” finished Steve with a shaky laugh. He averted his eyes to look at the floor to try to hide his misgivings.

Then and there, Tony wanted to tilt the blonde’s head by the chin, look into those hesitant blue eyes and assure him that Sharon and the rest of the mingling female population of the free world could go fuck themselves but that Steve didn’t have anything to be ashamed or afraid of. He wanted to. _God_ , he wanted to. But he refrained from doing it. Tony Stark was never the sentimental type especially before sex. He wasn’t about to be one now. No matter how much he wanted to make an exception for Steve.

Tony dreaded to think why he even _wanted_ Steve to be an exception.

“OK,” said Tony, swallowing. “So…your place or mine?”

“I think…maybe… _yours_ ,” Steve answered, biting his lower lip again.

Tony was in the process of twisting his key in the locked door of his apartment when Steve touched him on the forearm as if to stop whatever he was doing. “I just need to ask a favor from you, Tony.”

Tony looked at him curiously, prompting him.

“Like I said, it’s been _two years_ since I was intimate with anyone, and it’s _literally_ my first time to…to, you know, do it with, uh, with you—with a _man_ ,” Steve rambled, looking about as relaxed as an eel in boiling water. “I guess, wh—what I’m saying is—“

The engineer decided to put Steve out of his misery and reassured him, “it’ll be OK, Steve. I’ve got you. If you’re _really_ sure that you need this—“

“—I’m sure,” said Steve, definitively.  

“Then don’t worry your pretty face about it; I’ll talk you through it,” Tony assured with a wink and a soft smile. He remembered that it was the same thing he’d told Steve when they were in that hotel restaurant, pretending to be lovers for Steve’s ex’s benefit. He hoped it would be enough to assure the blonde.

Tony pushed the door open and ushered Steve inside his apartment, flipping open just the entryway and kitchen lights as he always did whenever he brought anyone back here. “So… this is the place,” intoned Tony uneasily, for lack of more seductive things to say. He couldn’t believe he was being like this; he had _never_ been this awkward before. It was pathetic how out-of-practice he was after just thirty days of not taking anyone home with him to fuck their brains out.

“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” Steve countered, humoring him. At least, Steve’s troubled expression was momentarily replaced with amusement, so Tony counted it as a win.

"Can I get you anything? Water, maybe?” Tony offered. Because he _always_ offered. It was part of his spiel to whomever it was he had taken back to his place to offer some kind of beverage as an icebreaker. If there was anyone more in need of an icebreaker, it was Steve.

Funny enough, Tony, too, was uneasy, second-guessing himself as to what to do and how to get Steve relaxed. Like it was also his first time or something! It was surreal.

“Water’s good. Thanks,” Steve accepted the offer, and Tony pulled his fridge door open to get two bottles of water, handing one to Steve and twisting his own bottle’s cap off. He guzzled the cold water like a triathlon athlete to try to calm the furious pumping of his heart that was beginning to deafen him. He must have done this same sequence of tactics a thousand times before and yet he had never been this hesitant. Was it because of his month-long hiatus? Was it something about Steve?

“How do you want me then?” Tony asked, throwing back the rest of his water and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It didn’t sound nearly half as sexy as he wanted it to, but it was an effective enough smokescreen to hide his own nerves from the other man.

“Well…how do you usually do it?” Steve coyly answered with a question of his own, swallowing a mouthful of water.

Tony’s heart started beating faster if that was even possible. “If I’m doing it with a first timer—get their edge off—I like to top.”

Steve looked like a deer in headlights for a moment before he hurriedly threw back what was left of his drink. Taking a deep, steeling breath, he said, “so top.”

Tony could swear he felt his dick twitch at that coy invitation. He didn’t use to have a preference for blushing, inexperienced, full-of-inhibitions virgins, but Steve fucking Rogers was going to be the death of him. Thirty days of wondering what it would feel like to be with Steve and it was all going to boil down to this. He should have passed by a pharmacy to get some Red Bull or something because he planned to rock this man’s world all night long.

He went around his kitchen counter to stand in front of Steve. So close, he could see the individual lashes framing the man’s eyes. “Careful what you ask for, Rogers. You might not be able to handle me.”

“Promises, promises,” Steve mouthed back, his lips coming dangerously close to Tony’s own.

Jesus, the sass on the man! Tony smirked, giving the other man what he knew was a smoldering stare before turning a bit more serious. “We need to set some ground rules first though,” Tony murmured, his breath mixing with Steve’s with how close they were. He tipped Steve’s chin so their eyes were squarely looking into each other’s. “If you feel any discomfort or pain, I want you to let me know. Regardless if I’m already so into it… If you feel the _least bit_ uncomfortable and want me to stop, just tell me, and I will,” enunciated Tony. “Can you do that, Steve?”

“Yes,” answered Steve with a single, firm nod, leaning towards Tony more and mouth falling slightly open.

“I said I’ve got you, and I mean that. I want this to feel good for you, too, so I need you to tell me what you want,” Tony purred, the tip of his nose grazing Steve’s cheek. They were very close that he could almost taste Steve with every breath he took. “What do you want, Steve?” If he let his tongue breach his lips, he would be licking Steve’s skin already.

“I want to kiss you,” whispered Steve back, raising his hand to cradle the side of Tony’s head into its warmth.

“So kiss me,” invited Tony, breaching what space was left between them.

Maybe it was the time spent imagining kissing Steve or the many, many times Steve had unknowingly teased Tony by being in various states of nudity while stood in his apartment’s doorway, but the breathless anticipation electrified Steve’s lips that, like a magnet, Tony found himself absolutely drawn to it, devouring it like a drowning man taking in air while treading water in the middle of a vast ocean. Steve was deceptive, all right. Because he kissed nothing like the coy, reserved, polite, disciplined former soldier that he was. Steve kissed like no one Tony had pegged him to be; he sucked face like a champ. And if he fucked nearly as good as he kissed, Tony would surely be singing odes to Steve Rogers before the night was out.

Steve’s lips and tongue seemed to be spurred on by an unquenchable thirst and Tony was his brew that he couldn’t get enough of. Exploring, tentative yet demanding at the same time. They paused but only to switch the angle of their heads, so they could taste each other deeper. Tongues, wet and hot, slid against each other. Lips, wanton and eager, lapped at the other’s sweetness and spice and heat.

Hands were everywhere else that their lips and tongue couldn’t be: raking through the hair on the other’s scalp, cupping the back of each other’s heads, tracing the shells of their ears, stroking, gliding through exposed skin, trailing fire and electricity in their wake.

But Tony didn’t think he’d had enough of Steve’s skin—of Steve—on his hands and in his mouth. He wanted— _needed_ —more. Slipping his hands underneath Steve’s shirt, Tony combed his fingers down the groove of Steve’s spine, resting momentarily on the blonde’s hips before trailing his fingertips up, up, up Steve’s firm and toned abdomen, pectorals and clavicle. Tony wanted the damn shirt off, and the other man indulged by raising his arms to help Tony achieve his goal. They had to cut their kissing short in order for Tony to hike the shirt over Steve’s head, but they didn’t break for long. As soon as the shirt was discarded, Steve and Tony were biting, nipping, and sucking each other’s lips practically off their faces again.

The brunette didn’t waste any more time then. Now, that he had Steve’s full attention and enthusiastic participation, Tony nudged Steve backward towards his bedroom. All the while, they kept up with vigorously and passionately devouring each other’s mouths. Tony, for his part, was hurriedly unbuttoning Steve’s pants as if a prize awaited him at the end. When the back of Steve’s legs hit the edge of Tony’s bed, the latter grabbed hold of both the denim’s and the underwear’s waistlines and gave a heaving push down, freeing the blonde’s cock, which was already taking notice of the ongoing festivities.

Tearing his mouth off of Steve, Tony pushed the obstructing garments all the way down to his current bed partner’s lower legs and, placing his hands on Steve’s shoulders, urged him to sit on the edge of the bed. Taking a step back, Tony cocked his head to the side predatorily. He was still fully clothed, but Steve was already almost naked, save for his jeans and underwear pooling at his feet.

If Tony were a lesser man, he would’ve salivated at the sight of the neighbor he had been fantasizing over, nearly wrecked before him—eyes glassy and lips red and glistening with their passion.

“Kick those off your legs and tell me what you want, Steve.” Tony could’ve happily kept on kissing the other man. But ground rules were ground rules. He said he’d let Steve set the pace for this show; he was going to do just that.

“I want to see you naked, Tony,” Steve murmured, his voice nearly breaking with pent-up emotion. “I want to touch you.”

“Where do you want to touch me?”

“Everywhere,” came the breathless reply. Steve brazenly toed his shoes off, kicked his pants off his legs and placed his hands on his lap to cover himself, and then, reconsidering, put his hands beside him instead. But he never dropped Tony’s intense brown-eyed gaze.

Taking yet another step back, Tony crossed his arms, holding the hem of his sweater and pulling the shirt off and over his head. His hair got more tousled than it already was, but he got the fringes that had fallen over his eyes off with a toss of his head. His body was not as muscled as Steve’s was, but he knew it was impressive nevertheless. This was affirmed when he saw Steve’s hungry eyes roaming all over his bare skin. He continued his impromptu striptease by making a ceremony out of popping the buttons on his fly one by one, revealing his fire engine-red boxer briefs.

“You know, if I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you prepared for this,” gulped Steve, biting his lower lip.

“If I did, I’d’ve gone commando on your ass. Less articles of clothing to remove,” Tony purred, taking a step closer to Steve again. “What did you say you want _again_ , Steve?”

“I want to _touch_ you, Tony,” reiterated Steve, almost desperately. His hands closed into tight fists, clutching tightly at Tony’s bedding.

“Oh you will, gorgeous,” snickered Tony, kneeling before and nipping lightly at Steve’s lips again. “But there’s a question I need answered first. Hang on to something,” was about the only warning that the blonde got before Tony was trailing lips and tongue down Steve’s neck, collar, chest, abdomen, down, down Steve’s sparse happy trail, hipbones, and thighs. He steered clear of Steve’s twitching member, sucking and nipping at the skin on the other man’s hips. But not for long when, on a casual pass over Steve’s groin, Tony darted his tongue out to lick at the head of Steve’s cock, sending the other man flailing where he sat and falling backwards on the heels of his palms, surprised.

“Tony!” Steve half-groaned, half-whispered. But Tony paid him no mind as he enclosed a hand around the thickness of Steve’s now fully erect cock, started stroking it from the base all the way to the head, and rubbed the pad of his thumb on the slit. He did that for several repetitions before he leaned forward, unable to control himself any further, and put his lips around Steve’s dick, finally tasting him.

And it was magnificent. Steve’s flavor was nothing short of magnificent. Tony slurped all over the head, swirling his tongue and sucking on the penis like it was a popsicle. He didn’t often give head; men—and women—he took home were usually the ones jumping at the chance to blow him. Though he rarely did the deed, he knew he was awesome at it. He had never yet failed to render his lovers incoherent and into trembling lumps of debauched flesh whenever he gave them one. He was going to make sure that Steve would be no exception. Taking the cock in as far down his throat as he could take it, Tony bobbed his head up and down, sucked, used his tongue and a bit of teeth to make certain that Steve was getting the best blowjob of his life. Steve was never going to forget this—to forget _him_. He would remember this blowjob as the best he’s ever had and will ever have. Ever.

Steve’s dick was impressive, too. It had a good length and girth, and Tony couldn’t take all of it in his mouth. But what he couldn’t take into his mouth, he stroked with absolute gusto. He, at intervals, took the length out of the wet heat of his mouth to rub the head on his lips, on his cheek, swirl his tongue over it, lick a stripe from root to crown before engulfing it again in his mouth.

“Oh God… Oh _God_ , I’m—Tony…I’m gonna… You have to st— _stop_ , I’m gonna…” Steve must be close because his length was rock-hard that it could probably hammer nails into the walls. Tony was _thirsty_ for him. Tony bobbed his head faster, sucked harder, relaxed his throat to swallow it as far as he could handle without gagging on it.

Steve choked and heaved great lungfuls of air, yanking furiously on Tony’s bed sheets. The blonde gave a powerful thrust into Tony’s mouth with a gasp and a growl before he was spilling his seed down the brunette’s throat. “Ho—ly shit… _damn_. I’m sorry, Tony. I tried to warn you,” apologized Steve, catching his breath and collapsing on his back on Tony’s bed. “I was hoping I could come when—you know, when you’re…”

 _‘When you’re inside me,’_ was left unsaid. Tony couldn’t help but find Steve’s awkwardness endearing. Obviously, the lack of sexual activity for thirty days had warped his mind. It was either that or the fact that he was still hard enough to pound rocks to dust that was causing all this… _weirdness_. “That’s in the agenda, handsome. And I can’t wait to see you come undone. You taste amazing, by the way. Do you still want to touch me, Steve?”

“Hell yeah. I think it’s unfair that you still have way too many clothes on,” said Steve, folding his arms behind his head to get a look at Tony who was standing at the foot of the bed, still clothed from the waist down.

“Stop with the sass and get on the center of the bed,” directed Tony, toeing his own shoes off and continuing with unbuttoning his jeans. He gripped the waistline of the trousers and bowed to yank it down. Tony could feel Steve’s eyes on him while he pulled the pant legs off. Straightening up again, the brunette made another show of slowly divesting himself of his boxer-briefs for Steve to see his cock.

He was so aroused already that the crown of his dick boasted an impressive pearl of precum. If he hadn’t let Steve set the pace, he would already be shoving his length, fuck all, down Steve’s throat and fucking that wet, hot mouth. But he promised to make it good for Steve, too. He _wanted_ to make it good for Steve—take care of the blonde, make sure he was satisfied. This was not only Tony’s incentive. This was Steve’s rebirth.

“You’re _beautiful_ , Tony,” Steve complimented breathlessly. “I would really, really, _really_ like to touch you now.” Steve sat up just as Tony climbed on to the bed, kneeling in the V of Steve’s splayed legs.

“So touch me already,” Tony dared, cupping the back of Steve’s head and pulling towards him so their lips could find each other again. Their kisses became more heated than when they’d started. For Tony, things became harder (pun intended) for him when, on top of the extraordinary kissing, he felt Steve’s hesitant but fiery and possessive touches all over his shoulders, biceps, chest, abdomen, hips, inner thighs and the globes of his ass. The blonde’s fingertips were like molten fire, leaving Tony’s skin singing with electricity and dimpling with goosebumps.

When Steve tentatively enclosed his warm hand around Tony’s length, Tony thought he saw stars. God, how he’d missed this—missed sex. And sex for him, at this moment, was a thousand times more amazing knowing that it was Steve’s hand that was wrapped around his dick, pumping it—half-eager, half-timid. “If you keep that up, this show is gonna be over real soon.” Tony breathed a warning against the shell of Steve’s ear

“But you can get hard again… How long is your refractory period?”

“If you can still use big words like that, obviously I’m not doing my job well enough,” chuckled Tony, stealing a teasing nip at Steve’s lips before pushing the latter down on the bed on his back. “Time to do something to address that.”

He reached for the top drawer on his bedside table and pulled out a tube of lube. He flipped the top cap open and put a liberal amount of it on his right hand. With his left hand, he stroked circles on Steve’s navel and lower abdomen. “What do you want, Steve?”

Steve mumbled something that Tony didn’t quite catch, but it must have been something embarrassing because Steve’s face and neck visibly colored pink in the pale light of the moonlight-bathed bedroom. “You have to tell me what you want, so I can oblige you, stud,” urged the brunette, rubbing the fingers of his right hand together to get the lube to evenly coat his digits and to get it warm for Steve.

“I want to feel good—feel you inside me,” Steve haltingly enunciated, closing his eyes to hide remnants of his embarrassment.

“Don’t be embarrassed, gorgeous. That’s what I’m here for, you know—to make you feel good.” Tony licked the palm of his left hand and, with it, enclosed Steve’s quickly hardening length again. He stroked in time with Steve’s gasps, over and over. When Steve was already distracted with what Tony’s left hand was doing, the latter used that opportunity to, with the pad of his right thumb, massage at the muscle of Steve’s anal orifice. He was going to be surrounded by the wet heat of that soon enough, and Tony could hardly wait. But Steve needed to be relaxed and adequately prepped first if Tony wanted the blonde keening in ecstasy instead of tearing in pain, and anal sex for the first time could hurt like a motherfucker if not done right.

“I can’t wait to pound that ass. But first you need to relax,” instructed Tony, keeping the rhythm he had established with his left hand on Steve’s cock and his right teasing at Steve’s opening. “Breathe, in and out. In and out. That’s right. Don’t tense up. Just breathe.” Steve was breathing and adequately focused on the sensation on his cock, so Tony, with a lubed forefinger, breached the opening of Steve’s channel, one finger segment at a time.

“Oh my… Oh God, God, _God_ …” Steve murmured like a mantra, keening.

“Tony is fine, you know. _God_ is a bit too much, don’t you think?” Tony joked to further get Steve sidetracked from the intrusion into his body. “Tell me if it hurts, OK?”

“OK. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Good. ‘Cause it’s about to get better,” Tony said by way of heads-up as he pulled his finger out all way only to slide back in. He repeated it until Steve felt loose enough for the one finger. Before long, Tony was sliding in his fore- and middle fingers into Steve’s body. He shifted where he knelt to get his hand angled better, and on the next slide, he connected with a bundle of nerves in Steve’s body that got the latter crying out loud and gripping the bed’s headboard with a shaky intake of breath.

“ _Fuuuuuck_ ,” Steve wailed and gasped. And god _damn_ was that hot or what? Tony rarely heard Steve cuss, and he must admit that Steve cussing while getting his ass fingered to oblivion was one of the hottest things Tony had ever seen and, considering the things he’s seen, that was saying something!

“Still OK? Not painful? I can stop if it is,” reminded Tony, biting the corner of his lower lip. It was going to be hard to stop because this was so fucking arousing, but he did promise Steve that he would if the blonde was the least bit uncomfortable…

“’s not painful. So _not_ painful… If you stop, Tony, I swear to God I’m gonna raise hell. Oh… hooooly _fuck_ …” Steve was still speaking when Tony connected with Steve’s prostate again, and Tony marveled at the blonde’s toes curling in absolute pleasure.

Tony bent forward and put Steve’s dick in his mouth again while his right hand slammed into Steve’s ass using three fingers that time. It made Steve positively howl and groan so loud, the walls of Tony’s bedroom seemed to shake with it. “Let it all go, baby—scream all you want. Don’t worry, I think my neighbor from across the hall won’t mind the freaky sex sounds this time around,” Tony joked, letting go of the head of Steve’s cock with a pop.

“Fuck, fuck—Tony. If you keep doing that, I’m gonna shoot my load again.” _Holy…_ But Tony absolutely _loved_ it when Steve talked dirty!

“Not until I’m balls deep inside you, gorgeous,” Tony said, his voice husky. He momentarily paused on his ministrations on Steve’s dick, reached for the bedside table drawer again and plucked a small packet from its depths. “Dating 101, Steve— _always_ protect yourself. Never trust your partner when they say they’re clean or they’ve had their period or whatnot. Put the rubber on, yourself, if you have to. Practice safe sex, are we clear?”

“Cr—crystal,” answered Steve, choking on his gasps.

“Put the condom on me,” Tony directed. “I kinda like my hands where they are.” He was buzzing in his arousal now. He needed to be engulfed in Steve’s heat right fucking now.

After his length was gloved, Tony nodded towards a pillow. “Maybe you should be on your stomach for this part, and put the pillow beneath you. It’ll be less uncomfortable for you this way.”

“No,” countered Steve with a petulant shake of his head, swallowing and breathing heavily. “I want to be able to see you.”

“Are you sure? It’ll be less uncomfortable on your stomach,” insisted Tony. He was only suggesting for Steve’s benefit, but for him, Steve could be standing, bent over the back of an armchair, and it wouldn’t really matter as long as he got his dick in that glorious, glorious ass.

“I’m sure, Tony—just fuck me already,” Steve nearly wailed, half-frantic.

Tony’s eyes narrowed into slits and, practically growling, he pulled his fingers out of Steve’s loose and pliant hole and pressed his groin against Steve’s. Signaling the latter to lift his hips up, Tony placed a pillow underneath the blonde. He hauled Steve’s right leg up against his left shoulder as he aligned the head of his cock with Steve’s opening. Bit by glorious bit, Tony slid his cock slowly through the ring of muscle and into Steve’s channel.

“To—Tony… Oh my Go—ungh!” Steve craned his head to the side, exposing his alabaster-smooth neck while Tony sheathed himself in Steve’s warmth as gently and carefully as he could so as not to hurt his current lover.

Tony could’ve moaned shamelessly also at the surprise and bliss of having Steve’s warmth surround his cock. The delicious friction and the tightness of him drove Tony closer and closer to the edge. If he didn’t watch out, this was going to be over too quickly, and he was having none of that.

When he was buried to the hilt, Tony bracketed Steve’s head with his hands and, leaning forward, captured the blonde’s lips in another bruising kiss. “I have to move now, Steve. Tell me if you want me to stop, all right?” He braced himself on his knees and toes, pulled out of Steve just as slowly as he had slid himself in, only to slam back into that warm, wet channel, to the root of his cock.

Steve whimpered and gasped, one of his hands clutching on Tony’s forearm, while the other was tightly fisting Tony’s sheets. On the next pull and thrust, Tony angled it to where he already knew Steve’s prostate was. “Still good?” Tony asked in between his thrusts.    

“Oh my God—keep going, don’t stop. Don’t stop, please don’t stop,” Steve begged, mewling into the stack of pillows on the head of Tony’s bed. The rapture on Steve’s face that was beginning to glisten with the sweat of their passion was unmistakable and fucking beautiful and beyond any other description available to Tony’s fast short-circuiting brain.

Tony started to pound that ass in earnest now, making sure to hit Steve’s prostate with every inside thrust. He bent his head low towards Steve’s torso, to capture a pert, pink nipple in his mouth, swirl his wet tongue over it and suck it between his teeth. Steve’s keening response went from Tony’s ears to his dick in record time, making his lower belly twinge with his impending orgasm. He had to make Steve climax first, though; first, he needed to see Steve come undone.

Tony let go of Steve’s nipple in favor of licking a stripe up Steve's neck, from where neck met shoulder to where jaw met neck. He caught the earlobe between his teeth and sucked it just as Steve started to meet him thrust for thrust.

“I’m close—I’m so cl—close, Tony,” moaned Steve, needy and greedy, against Tony’s shoulder that was slick with the sweat of sex.

Tony reached between them and added the stimulation of his fist around Steve’s cock, pumping it. He licked the shell of Steve’s ear, inhaling the smell of the man’s sweat-slicked blonde hair, and murmured, “come for me, gorgeous.”

And that was what it took before Steve came with a wailing cry and a gasp that would’ve shamed a choking man taking in his last breath. Thick ropes of pearly-white come spurted from the head of his cock, coating Tony's hand, Steve's own lower abdomen and chest. But it was Steve’s face that seized Tony’s attention and held it. For Tony, Steve coming undone was the most glorious thing since the invention of coffee. He was… _ethereal_. Otherworldly. There was no other word for it. His skin glistened, his cerulean eyes glowed and the pillows of his lips plump and delicious.

The clenching of Steve’s insides brought about by the force of his orgasm was what it took for Tony to go over the edge, himself, coming with a silent yell and a long drawn out moan from the depths of his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had come so explosively. He leaned his head down and planted his forehead on Steve's clavicle, trying to catch his breath.

"That wa—was, was—" Steve himself was breathless, heaving great lungfuls of air. He brushed Tony's fringe away and kissed the latter's temple as if his gentle action would more than make up for his loss of words. "Now I know how you had them screaming loud enough to be heard through the walls."

"Awesome, yeah?"

" _Beyond_ awesome," countered Steve, combing his fingers through Tony's wet hair.

"I aim to please, handsome," Tony said with a chortle as he lifted himself a bit off the other man, supporting himself on his elbows so he could look at Steve's face. "I gotta pull out and get off you."

"Wasn't that exactly what you just did?" Steve joked, sliding his hand up Tony's back from the base of his spine to the nape of his neck.

"I see I didn't quite succeed in turning your brain to mush, Mr. Sass and Spangles," Tony observed, gently pulling his softening cock out of Steve's ass, taking the spent condom off and tying its mouth before discarding it in the nearest trash bin.

"That's the best pet name for me you could come up with? Haha..." Steve retorted, lifting his hips up to free the pillow and the covers from underneath him.

"I'm not even _trying_ very hard to come up with any pet names," replied Tony, getting off the bed still unashamedly naked, to head to his en suite bathroom for a wet cloth to clean themselves with.

He got the wet washcloth and, with pursed lips, returned to bed to wipe the spunk off the blonde's torso and lower abdomen, and the excess lube from Steve's inviting hole. Steve observed him, wordlessly, through hooded eyes while he did that.

"Can I at least stay the night, Tony?" Steve asked, almost dreading the answer, but looking hopeful, nonetheless.

"You think I'm gonna kick you out?"

"Is that not your M.O.?"

"Maybe not tonight..." Tony lay down on the bed beside Steve, throwing the covers over their naked bodies.

Tony splayed his arms perpendicular to his torso and Steve lifted his shoulders and lay down with his head resting on Tony's left bicep. They didn't speak but just lay there looking at each other in the gray light of the deepening night. Luminous blue eyes on brown ones.

And for the first time since he could remember, in the light of all the afterglows he'd ever had, this—being with _Steve_ like this—felt so fucking right.

Tony watched in the weak light how Steve’s long eyelashes cast shadows against his cheekbones, how Steve’s lips went a bit slack and slightly open as sleep slowly claimed him, how Steve’s body fit against his like they were two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, how the look on Steve’s face during orgasm was now permanently emblazoned behind Tony’s eyelids.

Raising his right hand for his fingertips to hover over the skin of the sleeping form pressed flush against him, Tony hesitated before skin could make contact with skin.

Is it possible that for the first time in he didn't know how long he, Tony Stark—nonbeliever in love and long-term relationships of the first order, was fucking falling _in love_ , against his best intentions, with Steve Rogers?

Holy.

 _Shit_.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another explicit scene found here!  
> \-----

Steve opened his eyes still to the gray light of not quite night and not quite morning. He couldn’t have slept more than a couple of hours if it was still dark-ish.

Turning his head to stare at the warm body whose left side Steve was practically draped over, the blonde found Tony deeply asleep with his face turned away from the person currently sharing his bed that all Steve could see were the curling ends of Tony’s hair at the nape of his neck and the shell of his ear, a cheek bathed in the smoky light, and sculpted clavicle and shoulder. Steve shivered with pleasure when he discovered that the back of his head was still cushioned by Tony’s lightly muscled bicep.

He straightened to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling of the brunette’s apartment. He found himself remembering every detail of last night’s sexual encounter: the taste of Tony’s lips against his, the touch of Tony’s rough but powerful hands on him— _in_ him, the feel of Tony’s cock inside him. And he blushed, remembering how he had mewled and begged for Tony to pound into his ass. His ass that before that night had never known the feel of cock before. But for an anal sex virgin, Steve thought he was pretty uninhibited and vocal last night. God, did he know now how Tony got all of his lovers practically eating out of the palm of his hand. The man was quite an attentive and passionate lover that Steve didn’t know he could climax as intensely as he did last night. _Twice!_

Oh, what he would do to return the favor that Tony bestowed upon him last night and _feel_ like that again? Who knew sex with Tony Stark could be so freaking addictive?

Steve straightened up in bed, leaning on his right elbow to stare more intently at the person sharing the space with him. Tony looked damn fine, all right. He was even more breathtaking asleep than awake if that was possible.

What if…

Steve pinched the hem of the sheets still covering most of what he knew was the sinfully delicious body on that man and tugged it down, down, down—exposing Tony’s pectorals, abdomen and navel. Lifting the sheet to take a mischievous peek at Tony’s bits south of his navel, he found the soft but nevertheless impressive cock that the man was blessed with. And Steve started chewing his lips in indecision. He wanted to taste Tony as deeply and as intensely as the latter did for him last night. It was only fair, wasn’t it?

But could he do it? He’d never given oral sex to a man before. The farthest he’d ever gone with his self-discovery experiments in his rebellious youth were _hand jobs_. But he figured that what he lacked in experience, he could make up for in enthusiasm and the burning thirst for the other man’s taste. He’d been drugged; he was fucking high on Tony Stark.

Brushing the sheet off of Tony’s groin and thighs, Steve sat up and braced himself against Tony’s hips. The brunette shifted a bit in slumber but as far as Steve could observe, he was still blissfully oblivious that he was about to be woken up with his cock in someone else’s mouth.

Steve licked his lips and grasped the member in his left hand, giving it a few exploratory tugs. Remembering that what he had in his hand was what gave Steve immense pleasure just a couple of hours ago, he felt his cheeks heat up. And before he could lose his nerve and doubt what he was about to do, Steve leaned forward and captured the head of Tony’s penis between his lips.

He gave it more experimental licks, swirls of the tip of his tongue on the slit, slides of the pad of his tongue against the shaft. All the while, keeping the rhythm he had going, pumping the base of it. Soon enough, he could feel the member start to take an interest in his ministrations. Tony was beginning to breathe more erratically in his sleep, too. Steve suspected that Tony was most likely passing this off as nothing else but a dream.

Stealing a glance at Tony’s face, Steve saw furrowed eyebrows and a slightly open mouth where deeper breathing was coming from. These little reactions from the slumbering man spurred Steve on to keep to the program. He began to be more confident, though, taking Tony’s cock deeper and deeper into his mouth with every bob of his head down until he could feel the head hit the back of his throat. Could he go further and try _deepthroating_ Tony? He was a pitiful novice at this that he was afraid he was going to gag on it, and that would be tremendously _not_ sexy. At all. So, what he did was to take it deeper a little at a time to test his limit. The taste was changing now, too, as Tony’s precum mixed with his saliva. It was a new but not unpleasant taste. He knew the taste would be, from this day forward, something he would associate with Tony, something that was uniquely Tony. He could imagine that it tasted like coffee with cinnamon. It was mouthwatering.

“This, by far, is the best wakeup call I’ve ever gotten. I should give the management my highest compliments,” languidly drawled Tony with a small stretch so as not to disturb Steve’s lips which were avidly wrapped around his dick. “Are you sure you’re a virgin at this, Steve? Because you are sucking cock like a champ right now, babe.”

Steve purred and hummed at that, sending tremors through the wet and warm walls of his mouth. It must have been stimulating because Tony gave a breathy groan that made the blonde smile inwardly. He never thought blowing someone was the least bit arousing, but his own quickly hardening length proved him wrong; this was plenty arousing, or maybe it was just the glorious reaction from Tony—the sexy, choked gasps—that was doing it for Steve? He couldn’t be certain anymore.

The blonde got the additional affirmation that he wasn’t completely screwing this up when Tony threaded his fingers through Steve’s hair for some kind of purchase as Steve kept on bobbing his head on Tony’s cock in earnest.

“God _damn_ Steve, I wanna fuck your mouth,” Tony whined, bucking his hips up only once but, realizing that Steve was probably not prepared to handle it, restrained himself. “Can I fuck your mouth, please, please?” Tony Stark begging… Steve could definitely get used to that.

Steve let go of Tony’s dick with slurp and a pop, opting to pepper kisses on the V of Tony’s hips and his happy trail instead. “There is—“ Kiss. “—something else—“ Kiss. “—I want.” Kiss.

“What?”

“I think I’d like to fuck you, Tony,” Steve boldly declared, looking at Tony from behind the curtain of his eyelashes. “May I?”

“Holy fu—are you asking me for _permission_ if you can fuck me?”

“Like you’d appreciate it if I just shove my dick in you without any say-so,” snorted Steve with what he hoped was a sexy, come-hither smile. “I’m hard from blowing you and I would really _love_ it if I can return the favor from last night.”

“Permission granted, Sir! You’re going to have to do for me what I did for you last night. Think you’re up for it? I can prep myself if you want me to,” Tony answered, crossing his arms behind his head to stare down at his groin where Steve was draped.

Oh lordy, now wouldn’t that be _hot_? Having to watch Tony finger his own ass for Steve to fuck him? Now, he couldn’t get the mental picture out of his head, and wouldn’t he love to see that? But no—he needed to reduce Tony to mush himself. He wanted Tony to remember the feel of him. If this was his last and only chance to have the elusive Tony Stark for himself, Steve sure as hell was going to leave a mark on the man.

“As hot as that sounds, I’d like to do that _myself_ ,” volunteered Steve, returning to the task of peppering Tony’s abs with feather-light kisses.

“You remember what I did for you last night?”

Steve could remember, all right. Steve remembered _plenty_ , like, every damn detail. Something like that was hard to forget… “I’ve always considered myself a quick study,” coyly assured the blonde, crawling up Tony’s body to reach for the brunette’s bedside table where his supplies were. On the way back down, armed with the lube and a condom packet, Steve stole a quick kiss from Tony that was hard enough to draw blood.

Breaking the kiss, Tony shifted where he lay, splayed his arms perpendicular to his torso and opened his legs wide, reminiscent of the Vitruvian Man, with an alluring smile. “Have at it then, handsome.”

Steve practically buzzed with the anticipation of taking Tony the way Tony had taken him. He squeezed some lube on his right hand, rubbing his fingers together to coat each digit. He was both apprehensive and excited, wanting this to feel just as good for Tony as it had been for him.

Breaching the ring of muscle with his forefinger, Steve almost moaned, himself, with how amazing Tony’s heat engulfing his finger felt. He tore his eyes away from the mesmerizing sight of his finger disappearing slickly into Tony’s body in favor of watching the more mesmerizing sight of pleasure on Tony’s face because of the initial stimulation.

Before long, Steve added his middle finger and started languidly jacking Tony off with his free hand. He made sure to do it without any hurry, though, wanting Tony to go crazy while on the precipice of his climax. Crisscrossing his fingers inside Tony’s channel, he gently changed the angle of his fingers a little at a time. He wanted to find that sweet, sweet spot inside Tony’s body that would send him keening and choking on his gasps, his toes curling and his hips jerking off the bed to chase after the pleasure.

And when Steve finally zeroed in on it… “Ho—ly motherfuck _eeeerrrr_!” Tony howled, squeezing his eyes shut, and his insides clenched on Steve’s fingers. As reactions went, Tony’s were deeply satisfying that Steve became inspired, hitting the same bundle of nerves with every venture of his digits inside Tony’s channel. “Jesus, Steve, if—“ Keen and shiver. “—you keep doing that—“ Moan. “—I’m gonna fucking—“ An actual honest-to-God whine. “—come!

“Get fucking inside me, already!”

“But, I’ve only got two fingers in,” protested Steve, sliding his fingers in and out of Tony at a punishing pace and hitting that spot every time.

“I’m not a _virgin_ and—“ Gasp. “—I’ve always liked it a bit rough—“ Choke. “—so, just…fucking go to town fucking me!” Tony heaved himself up to a sitting position, strong-armed Steve for the condom packet, tore it with his teeth and gloved Steve’s cock, all in record time.

Just as Steve pulled his hand off of Tony, the latter pushed Steve down on his back, with his head towards the foot of the bed. “Hang on, I’ve a better idea. You’re gonna love this,” said Tony with a breathless laugh. The brunette straddled his hips, and snatching a quick kiss from Steve, himself, murmured against the latter’s lips, “I’m gonna _ride you_.”

If Steve were any more aroused, he would’ve come right then, hearing Tony say that.

Tony grabbed Steve’s condom-sheathed cock and guided it into his hole. Tony sank himself down on Steve’s member and, when Steve was completely inside, braced himself on his thighs.

The heat and the tightness were unbelievably delicious that when a sonorous moan filled the room, it took him a while to realize that it had come from him. When Tony started moving, bouncing on Steve’s cock, the blonde could’ve cried with all the delicious sensations bombarding him at that moment.

His mind fell blissfully blank. All that he was aware of was Tony on his hands, Tony on top of him, Tony engulfing him, Tony in his mouth, Tony’s heavy breathing in his ears. He didn’t know how it happened, but his objective to be the one to leave a lasting mark on Tony was not happening as he had initially planned. Because it was _Tony_ who was searing himself on Steve, branding Steve, making sure that _Steve_ would never forget _him_ —would never be able to be with another without thinking of him.

Tony leaned forward, placing his palms on Steve’s chest, without breaking the rhythm of impaling himself on Steve’s hardness that he’d set. Tony’s eyes were closed; he was breathing through his mouth; his neck and shoulders glistened with sweat. The brunette really was beautiful that a lump began to form in Steve’s throat as he feasted his eyes on the absolutely heart-stopping creature satisfying himself on Steve’s cock.

Unable to control himself any longer, Steve sat up, wrapping his arms around Tony’s torso and meeting the other man’s inviting lips for another bruising kiss.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Tony,” murmured Steve against the brunette’s lips.

“Touch me, Steve. Make me come,” Tony commanded, frenetic, claiming Steve’s lips again. And the blonde obliged him, wrapping a hand around Tony’s hard length again.

“G—god…” groaned Steve against Tony’s mouth. The stimulation and the building explosion in his lower abdomen was so intensely exquisite that it was already bordering on painful. “To—Tony…” Steve dragged out the last syllable of the name, tearing his lips away from his partner’s. The name sounded like a prayer, like an entreaty. He didn’t know what about it was particularly appealing but that was what it took for Tony to fall off the precipice. He orgasmed with a series of shudders and a sob, spilling his seed all over their bellies.

If Steve thought Tony was going to let up on riding him after that climax, he was sorely mistaken, because Tony kept on bouncing on his dick and clenching deliciously with every downward thrust. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and, nipping at Steve’s neck, snared a pulse point between his teeth. And sucked, and sucked, and sucked, marking the blonde.

“You will remember me—and this—forever, Steve Rogers. Your future lovers wouldn’t even come close,” mouthed the brunette against the side of Steve’s head, close to his ear. And that did it—the clincher—as Steve climaxed with a yell stifled against Tony’s clavicle and deep spasms that seemed to rock him to his core.

They held each other like that for what seemed like a long time. Steve didn’t loosen his embrace and Tony didn’t ask him to let go and pull out. What brought him back to earth was some deep, amused chuckling from the brunette.

“You OK?” Tony asked, leaning back to look at Steve’s face, which was probably so blissed out, he was cross-eyed.

“Sh—shou—shouldn’t I be ask—asking _you_ that?” Steve replied, trying to catch his breath and tossing his head back a bit to get his blonde fringe off his eyes.

“I’m fantastic,” Tony countered, finally getting his own arms off his bed partner and shifting where he still sat, impaled on Steve’s spent penis. As soon as Tony freed him from the heat of his body, the blonde began to miss him already.

“That, you are,” conceded Steve, gingerly removing the condom, tying it up and tossing it to the bin to join the first one they’d used the night before.

“As much as I’d enjoyed round two, I’m pretty beat. Maybe we should sleep again?” Tony prepared to snuggle back into the sheets.

“Hold on. I’m gonna clean you up. Dried spunk is not a welcome sight in the morning.” Steve scrambled off the bed to fetch another washcloth. Returning to bed, he attentively cleaned Tony up, straightened the sheets and plumped up their pillows. “Get back to sleep, beautiful.”

“Is _that_ gonna be your pet name for me?” Tony jokingly asked, burrowing deeper into the covers. “Because it’s awful.”

“Maybe I’ll get my wits back soon to think of a better one,” countered Steve, pressing his front against Tony’s back to spoon the latter.

Tony stiffened a bit at that, or maybe Steve had only imagined it. “Hmm,” was the only, ambiguous reply before Steve surrendered to tiredness and let sleep reclaim him.

It seemed that Steve was awake again as soon as he had fallen asleep. But this time, Steve didn’t wake to the warmth of Tony’s body against him. He was alone on Tony’s bed.

“Tony?” Steve called, dreading to think that Tony had pulled his usual vanishing act on him and left him in the apartment like all his past conquests. After all, Steve had become last night’s conquest. He was old news. Just another notch on Tony’s bedpost.

“Yeah I’m in the bathroom!” Tony yelled back.

Steve actually breathed a sigh of relief at that. He didn’t know how he was going to handle it if Tony suddenly went stranger-mode on him.

“Do you have to go to work today?” Steve stood up from the bed to collect his clothes from the night before. He didn’t mind having to put them on again; after all, he lived not ten steps away, and he could easily change.

He was seriously considering skiving off work again today if Tony was thinking of doing the same thing. Maybe they could do another movie marathon because it had been fun, the first time they did that.

“About that… Yeah, unfortunately I have to. Which is why even though I hate to have to ask you to leave, I gotta, Steve—no offense,” called Tony from within the bathroom. He seemed to have started the shower running.

Steve was suddenly thankful that he was alone in the room because he actually felt crestfallen and he was sure his face displayed it, too. “Yeah, no—it’s OK. I’ll, uh, let myself out of your apartment. I gotta go to work myself. I’ll just text you if, you know, you’re free to grab dinner or something…” He left it open-ended. He just hoped he didn’t sound like _Lucas, the Clingy Koala_ who was already counting the minutes before he could see Tony again. Now wouldn’t that be a complete nightmare?

“Sure thing!” Tony hollered, distractedly, still from within the bathroom.

Steve stood hesitantly before the closed bathroom door for he didn’t know how long, unsure if he should say anything else. He felt like if he left like this now without looking Tony in the eye or satisfying himself that there wouldn’t be any awkwardness between them, it was a portent of something awful for their budding friendship.

But he didn’t knock, and he didn’t speak. He just chewed the insides of his mouth before hanging his head and turning on the balls of his feet to leave.

That was that.

His uneasiness and the mix of having butterflies in his stomach and a lump in his throat stayed with him even when he was already at work. At the back of his mind was the nagging feeling of needing to shoot Tony a text for reasons which, even to him, were inexplicable. He grappled with the urge all day because he didn’t think Tony would appreciate that.

They had sex. It was awesome sex, given. But Steve didn’t think that entitled him to some kind of stake over his neighbor.

A bright spot to his otherwise emotional roller coaster of a day was when the Accounting department finally deigned to release his accumulated reimbursable. In his amusement, he didn’t quite realize that he had reached for his mobile to text Tony about it until the message was already sent.

He wanted to brain himself on his own desk when it dawned on him what he had done. In his own defense, he and Tony had been talking about it in depth on Tony’s yacht’s deck that it completely slipped his mind that he had no business texting Tony about it especially given the events of last night.

But as it was, the damage was already done so he tried to stop thinking about it. _Tried_ being the operative term because the rest of Steve’s day was spent dreading to get a reply from Tony and feeling unhappy when a reply didn’t seem all that forthcoming.

He found himself sending another random text to his neighbor after lunch to tell him about a new girl at work that Steve was again considering asking out for another coffee date. Steve believed the text to be innocent enough since Tony was his unofficial dating instructor-slash-mentor anyway. When there was still no answer from Tony about that, he was almost angry and irritated, but his distress was still stronger than his annoyance at Tony’s snub, thinking that the latter was just preoccupied with work.

It was a blessing of sorts when the time to meet up with Lianne finally came around. At least, this meant he would stop thinking about Tony so much. Despite that, he still texted the engineer about the coffee date with Lianne with a not-quite question about dinner. He really was some sort of masochist.

But when seven in the evening came and went without a peep from Tony, Steve was just indifferent. Lianne was lovely that it wasn’t any kind of hardship for Steve to extend an invitation to the lady to join him for dinner.

They talked about their work and workplaces, their common friends—the Odinson spouses, their respective tastes in movies, music, and books, their hobbies, the strangest things about themselves, and mostly every other topic that tickled their fancy. Soon enough, Steve’s reservations about Tony were at the very back of his mind. This was quite unlike his other dates with Maggie and Maria when he was more awkward than comfortable. Maybe it was because he had set this up himself and Lianne was really someone Steve, himself, liked off the bat.

When the late evening rolled around, still without any word from Tony, Steve was predominantly angry and vindictive for reasons he couldn’t fathom. Tony didn’t owe him anything. Their covenant has already been carried out. Both parties were satisfied, and that was supposed to be that. Steve was hurt, though, feeling like Tony should have answered at least _one_ of his texts! He was seething inside that it wasn’t at all difficult for him to ask Lianne if she wanted a night cap at Steve’s apartment. He figured that if he got rejected, it would be no more difficult than the awkward blind dates he’s had. But if Lianne were to accept, then Steve was leveling up.

And Tony didn’t really have an advantage over him—or anything to teach him, really—apart from having to overcome Steve’s own doomed-to-fail mindset.

When Lianne accepted, Steve swore to himself to surprise them both.

Steeling himself, Steve also forced his subconscious to stop thinking about Tony and these past thirty or so days. Anyway, he’d already gotten all that he could from a _Tony Stark Dating Education_ : if nice guys finished last (and got cheated on by their girlfriends) then maybe, Steve didn’t really want to be a nice guy anymore.

-0-0-0-

Tony was in the middle of berating himself anew for the early morning, completely-out-of-left-field realization that he just might be a teeny, tiny bit infatuated (read, in love) with his neighbor when he froze in whatever it was he had been doing to distract himself from that very disturbing recognition. The self-same Steve Rogers that had featured in each and every thought he’d had all fucking day was sauntering up the stairs. And the man wasn’t alone if the animated voice that joined the blonde’s reverberating in the enclosed space that was the fifth-floor hallway was anything to go by.

The male and female voices were in the middle of a good-natured conversation about some movie or other. Tony couldn’t help but cringe at that. It would seem that Steve had invited the lovely Lianne to a night cap back at his place, quite uncharacteristically of him and much to Tony’s utmost chagrin.

Did this mean that Steve had chosen tonight—of all nights—to abandon his erstwhile rule that he never fucked on a first date? Because Tony sure as hell didn’t think that Steve had brought Lianne home to play _Call of Duty_ with her, no! Steve Rogers had brought back his coffee-turned-dinner date back to his place to make the beast with two backs; there was no doubt in Tony’s mind about it.

And the most ferocious feeling of sheer envy erupted right at the core of Tony’s insides, and he was suddenly filled with immeasurable and inexplicable _rage_.

How dare Steve bring home a date to fuck when not twelve hours ago he was pounding his dick into Tony’s ass and embracing him and attentively cleaning spunk off Tony’s groin! Steve was even his usual adorable self, sending Tony all those sweet nothings texts about his day (none of which Tony had answered, but not for lack of trying). And now this! Steve was such a bloody hypocrite. He had fed Tony all that cock-and-bull sob story about not having been able to get over his ex and about being afraid to date again and of intimacy with other people when here he was, practically dragging an eager slut up the stairs so they could get down and dirty with each other—Steve was such a terrific actor; he actually had Tony convinced of his innocence!

The brunette seethed so much, his hands were shaking over the keyboard of his laptop. This was fucking unbelievable! Why was he so mad that Steve was in the process of finally moving on from the heartbreak that was his ex-girlfriend’s cheating? It wasn’t like he and Steve had some kind of an understanding because what went on between them was just sex—it was a couple of rounds of incredibly awesome sex, yes, but _just_ sex, nevertheless. Tony had no right to feel like Steve was somehow deceiving him! Tony had no right to feel _anything_!

He had no right to accuse Steve of leading him on. Because Steve didn’t. This was all just Tony being unreasonably vindictive, blaming Steve for the indignation he was currently suffering through.

He had already known what it felt like to be with Steve, so it wasn’t like the girl that Steve was with had an advantage over him! He’s already tapped that ass—been there, done that. He wasn’t supposed to feel like he had any right or claim over his neighbor. They’ve both already done their part. Over. Finish. Done. Finité.

But at the back of his mind, he couldn’t help imagining tearing the girl’s teeth out of her mouth or something equally painful and atrociously sadistic. For all they knew, the girl was only there because she was curious if Steve was equally as awesome at sex as he looked. But she probably wasn’t the type to actually _get to know_ Steve.

The _bitch_ , ugh!

Tony found himself abandoning his work to stare off into space, scowl perfectly in place on his face. He was horrified to discover that he was straining to hear what was going on in the neighboring apartment where Steve’s just ushered his lady friend in for something that was definitely less wholesome than talking.

There was a long period of tense silence when Tony started drawing conjectures as to what could possibly be happening on the other side of Steve’s apartment door. He had completely let go of what he had been doing in favor of nearly pressing the side of his face against his door just to be able to hear more clearly.

He didn’t know what he dreaded more: hearing Steve screwing that girl and feeling awful for it, thereby confirming the worst about his real feelings for his neighbor; or not hearing anything which probably meant that Steve wasn’t screwing the girl and feeling relieved and ecstatic because of it, thereby confirming the worst about his real feelings for his neighbor. In the end, things weren’t really all that smashing for Tony. Whatever emotion was in the cards for him—it would seem that Tony’s feelings for Steve were pretty much cut and dried.

“You’ve never been in love before, Stark. What makes you so bloody sure that that’s even what you’re feeling right now?” Tony asked himself, muttering under his breath while he still had his forehead pressed against his wall, half in-denial that he wasn’t exactly where he was to try to eavesdrop on what was happening at his neighbor’s place.

But when the unmistakable panting, creaking bed joints and bed posts knocking against the wall began to emanate from Steve’s apartment into his, he knew he had it bad. He had it so fucking bad because his chest actually fucking _hurt_ as he listened to the undeniable sounds of lovemaking coming from Steve’s place. He, himself, had just been on the receiving end of that timid vigor, and he knew that the girl on the blonde’s bed was probably having the fucking time of her fucking life getting fucked by Steve Rogers.

He could actually feel himself choking on a lump that had formed in his throat; every breath felt like a fucking punishment.

The tapping and the moaning steadily went from relaxed to frenzied as Tony knew the deed was coming to a crescendo.

_“You will remember me—and this—forever, Steve Rogers. Your future lovers wouldn’t even come close…”_

Tony breathed against his door, imbibing on its woody scent. Was Steve even still thinking about him right now as he was pounding into his flavor of the night? Tony only said what he’d said in the heat of their fucking, but he knew he had meant a part of it at the very least. He had meant it as a wish. A wish that, maybe, he could be a part of Steve’s life from there on out as Steve was now irrevocably a part of Tony’s.

_Love._

_Oh God_. Tony had _never_ been in love, and he didn’t know if he could handle it, find a way to live with it and still function as he used to. Or if Steve, as his beloved, was going to have some kind of control over him now.

More than he hated himself, Tony began to _hate_ Steve. Steve had lied to him about his stupid rule. He _was_ capable of and amenable to one-night-stands!

Tony began to hate Phil, the building super, too. The walls in the building really were criminally fucking _thin_!

He wasn’t aware of it, but silence had fallen all over the fifth floor while he had been busy trying to wrestle thoughts of Steve out of his mind through other more mundane thoughts. It seemed that Steve and his fuck-of-the-night were done with their activities. For now. But the lump in Tony’s throat refused to abate and so did the twinge in his diaphragm.

_Love._

This just wouldn’t do. So, he made a decision. A decision that was surprisingly easy to arrive at.

Flipping his phone out from the front pocket of his pants, Tony dialed Pepper’s number. When Pepper picked up, Tony, without much preamble, said: “find me a new place, Pep. I’m moving out of here.”

“Tony, you’re not making any sense at all,” Pepper chastised, a stern look messing up her otherwise stunningly pretty face.

It was early morning, and Pepper had shown up in his apartment in her business suit for the day instead of waiting for him in the car or in the office because she needed to clear a few things out with him what with receiving that call the night before about Tony wanting to find a new place.

“Why have you suddenly decided to move out? Did something happen? Were you in an argument with any of your neighbors?” When Pepper put her mind to something, you could bet your ass she was going to keep at it regardless. Like right now, Pepper hounded Tony, following him all over the apartment and asking all these pesky questions either Tony didn’t have an answer to or Tony would shoot himself off in the head first before giving any answer to.

Tony, for his part, was busy, gathering what stuff he could back into their boxes for hauling. What were small enough to take with him now, he stuffed in rucksacks which he dropped in the living room as soon as they were filled. He planned to be out of the apartment with a small volume of his most important possessions before Steve came back from work in the early evening.

The latter went off to work that morning in the usual hour—Tony noticed it because he hardly got any sleep at all because of the noise of his thoughts. He had hung out all night in the entryway with his back pressed against his front door, hugging Friday close to his chest to stave off the chills the origin of which he couldn’t pinpoint. So, of course, he heard Steve and his lady friend bustling about in his apartment before the pair left at the crack of dawn with Steve walking his friend out of the building. _Steve walked his friend out of the building._ Only Steve would be courteous enough to walk a woman he had screwed the night before out of the building.

“I didn’t fight with any of them, Pep, OK? It’s just that with the end of the Challenge, I will be back to my old ways and I don’t want to have to force Steve’s hand to have me kicked out because of my nightly activities,” explained Tony, sorting through a box of various knickknacks to pick out what he intended to get now and what he would leave for the movers. “Steve wasn’t exaggerating, too. The walls are really that thin,” added the brunette like an afterthought.

“How do you know?” Pepper asked as if in challenge.

“I just _do_ , OK? Steve had some friends over last night while I was trying to get some work done and I barely did because they were so _noisy_ ,” Tony complained, but he could feel his face get hot in the process, remembering what Steve and his friend had really got up to the night before. “I just need to find a new place, Pep.”

“All right,” conceded the redhead. “But are you sure you would want to leave _now_? I mean, don’t you even want to talk to Steve, let him know that you’re moving and say goodbye?”

“It’s fine,” dismissed the engineer. “Steve isn’t going to miss me; we haven’t known each other for very long anyway. If anything, he will feel relieved that I’m leaving. There’s no need to tell him,” he continued, pulling open the door to the good-sized closet and digging through the clothes to get what he needed while he crashed at Pepper’s place in the meantime. “We’ll need to settle things with the super, though, make pretermination compensation or something.”

“This has something to do with him, doesn’t it? With _Steve_? You’ve decided to move out so quickly because something happened with Steve,” pressed Pepper, pulling a suspicious face. Tony was only too obviously trying to steer the topic away from Steve, downplaying the gravity of the situation that, sure enough, would get Pepper clued in that this has something to do with the blonde.

“No, no— _nothing_ happened, Pep,” Tony denied, making sure to keep his back turned towards Pepper. The last thing he needed was for his face to betray the feelings he was so desperately trying to hide. He didn’t know it was possible to feel so burdened and empty all at the same time. “But if I don’t leave now, something will. Steve’s always been vocally critical of my lifestyle, and I can’t exactly change who I am.”

“But this _isn’t_ who you are, Tony. You’re not a sex-crazed, unfeeling asshole. You’re more than that and these past thirty days should’ve proven that to you,” argued Tony’s loyal friend and confidante.

No, this past month was nothing more than a pain in Tony’s ass. If Tony had not used this past month to get to know Steve Rogers, befriend him, hang out with him, then Tony might not have fallen into this quagmire of thinking he was in love with the guy! He could’ve just fucked the guy’s brains out and be done with it. End of story. But no—he had to go out of his way to get close to Steve, and he paid the fucking price.

He had done exactly what he’d said he’d never do: give somebody else complete power over him by falling in love with them! Stupid, stupid, _fucking_ stupid!

“What happened this past month was just a fluke. I was only challenged to do something they all believed I couldn’t do so I just proved to them that I could. But I’m not about to turn over a new leaf just ‘cause of that, Pep. I like my life. _Liked_ how my life used to be. I gotta find a place where I can keep doing what I’ve always done and people won’t give me shit for it, OK?” Tony banged the closet door closed, having stuffed his duffel with enough clothes for about a week. A week would be enough. New York was big enough that there must be an apartment building out there where tenants couldn’t care less how often or who it was he fucked.

“OK, OK. But don’t you want to stay here while I go look for a new place? You won’t be comfortable bunking in my apartment,” urged Pepper.

“No, I _have_ to go. I’ve worn out my welcome here,” insisted Tony. “Please Pepper, just—for a couple of days.” Tony didn’t beg. It was something he never learned to do, but he was begging now. And it obviously disconcerted Pepper to hear the proud, sarcastic Tony Stark using that tone. Something big must have happened, something that Tony wasn’t ready to come to terms with. Pepper knew him well enough not to push now. He would say something himself once he was ready.

Tony was probably never going to be ready to confess something like this.

_Love._

He would sooner die with none the wiser that Tony Stark had tripped and fallen victim to love than say anything to any of his friends. They probably weren’t going to believe him. Because he could barely believe it, himself. After all of his safeguards, all of his precautionary measures, love had still strong-armed its way to Tony’s heart. But rather than marvel at the miracle, he was terrified because the object of his affection deserved so much more than him, more than what he could give. He was incapable of love; this was something that was doomed to fail from the start.

And Steve—Steve deserved something more than the fucked-up version of love that Tony was capable of. Steve deserved forever and ever; Tony didn’t know the concept. So, Steve should never know about what Tony had come to realize, because nothing could come of it anyway, and the only way Tony could keep it from him was if he vanished from Steve’s life completely. That way, Steve could keep his blissful innocence and Tony could go back to uncomplicated, no-strings-attached fucking. They could all put everything behind them.

“Of course, Tony. You can stay with me. I’ll, uh, wait for you downstairs then. We can take some of your stuff back to my place already before we head to the office.” With that, Pepper left Tony’s apartment so the latter could gather himself without anyone’s intrusion.

Tony looked around his apartment, his home for a little over two months. It was a short time to feel too attached to it. He wasn’t the type to be too attached to anything anyway.

He went into his bedroom to go look for Friday and found her stretched out on his bed. His bed where he and Steve cuddled and tangled with each other, where Steve took care of him when he got pissed-drunk on his mother’s birth anniversary, where they fucked twice and stared into each other’s eyes until they fell asleep, where Tony had lain prostrate as it slowly dawned on him that he was in love with Steve Rogers.

The fucking bed had to go—he could donate it, sell it, give it to the Salvation Army or fucking set fire to it or something, but he wasn’t keeping the bed.

Gathering Friday in his arms, Tony sat on the bed and looked around.

He was glad that Steve’s moved on; he was glad he had a hand in making that possible. Steve deserved nothing but the best, most loving relationship imaginable on God’s green earth. Maybe Lianne _was_ it, the one who would restore Steve’s belief in finding and being with the right one.

Maybe the next time he saw Steve, they would pass each other by in the mall and Steve would be pushing a baby carriage in front of him and his other arm would be slung around the shoulders of a very pregnant Lianne. And they would be happy because they have found their forever and ever. And Tony would be happy for them; there would be nothing of the bittersweet twinge in the pit of his stomach at the idea of Steve being _someone else_ ’s forever and ever. And Tony would still be alone. As was his conscious choice to be.

_Love._

Tony was not built for love as Steve was. He wondered how Steve would react once he found out that Tony had left the building to live somewhere else. Would Steve feel angry that Tony didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye? Would he be happy that Tony would be bringing his depravity somewhere else and it was good nights’ sleep from here on out? Would he be hurt because by some stroke of miracle he also felt the same for Tony as Tony felt for him?

He really shouldn’t be going there. Because there was _no way_ Steve was going to find out how Tony felt for him.

It may be too late to take back his realizations about Steve, but it sure as hell wasn’t too late to do something to kill it. Bury it. Pretend it never came to being. And if there was anything the ruthless businessman-engineer was great at, it was fucking his feelings away.

Tony stood up from the bed and got Friday’s carrier from underneath the console table by the entryway. “Let’s blow this joint and find a new place to stay,” Tony murmured against Friday’s fur, kissing the back of her ears before carefully depositing her inside the carrier.

He got the rucksacks of his knickknacks and the duffel with his clothes from the floor at the heart of the apartment and slung them over his shoulder. Taking one last inscrutable look at the lived-in apartment where everything in his life had changed, Tony opened the door and stepped out without another backward glance.


	18. Chapter 18

“Hey what’s up, Steve?” Clint greeted him in the stairwell leading to the third floor. The other blonde man was on his way down, being led by an exuberant Lucky who tugged on his leash, while Steve was on his way up, having just gone home from work.

“I’m terrific, Clint. What about you? Off somewhere?” Steve asked, falling on one knee to pet Lucky behind the ears.

“Yeah—we’re going to visit a friend,” confirmed Clint. “Just got back from work?”

“Yeah,” Steve answered, getting back up on his feet and straightening his mailman bag hung around his torso. “Hey Clint, you wouldn’t notice if Tony’s already home, by any chance? Maybe you’ve heard him bounding up the stairs?”

“Tony?”

“Yeah.”

“He left this morning,” Clint answered, tugging back on Lucky’s leash to keep the dog from vaulting down the rest of the stairs.

“You mean you haven’t seen him since he left for work this morning?” Steve asked again, confused.

“No, no—I meant he _left_ this morning. Took several rucksacks of his things and what seemed like a coupla days’ worth of clothes. Says he’s gonna look for a new place to stay—says he needs a larger space,” Clint relayed, brows furrowing. “’twas kinda spur-of-the-moment—I mean, it certainly looked that way, we just bumped into each other much like we are now… _Wait_ … you didn’t know? You didn’t know he was planning to leave the building?”

Steve must have looked as stunned as he felt. Of course, he didn’t know! He had no idea that Tony was even _thinking_ of moving out. Steve had thought Tony was satisfied with the building and the other tenants. Wasn’t he just thinking of giving money to his neighbors’ kids? It was like a cruel joke—a cruel joke that was never meant to be funny but offensive. They were just together the night before last, and now Tony was—what—just… _gone_ , and he didn’t even say one word to Steve?! Not even a breath of goodbye…

“No… I di—I didn’t know…” Steve muttered, barely recovering from the shock but there were already a maelstrom of new emotions pushing their way to the forefront of his consciousness: anger, distress and hurt. “Di—did he say anything else to you, Clint? Did he say where he was moving to?”

“No, Steve. I’m sorry. He didn’t say anything else,” Clint replied before following up, “hey—are you OK?”

“Y—yeah.” No. Steve wasn’t OK. He was anything _but_ OK. How could Tony have done this? Weren’t they supposed to be friends? And weren’t friends supposed to tell their friends if they were just going to…to up and leave?! Steve couldn’t help but think, too, that the engineer actually pre-meditated to leave the apartment while Steve was at work, clueless and ignorant that he even had plans to leave to begin with. What was Tony thinking?!

“Well, if you’re sure you’re OK, Lucky and I will be going now. We’ll see you later, OK? Maybe we can go ask Phil what Tony’s deal is. As building super, he would know what’s up and he would know about a forwarding address as well,” Clint helpfully suggested just as he let himself be pulled by his pet down the rest of the stairs.

Steve found himself still unmoving, on the same spot, even after Clint and Lucky were long gone. His legs just refused to move as he thought about what Tony must look like leaving the building in a hurry that morning. What _was_ wrong? Was Tony in some kind of trouble? Did he maybe have a spat with Phil on the eternal issue of the integrity of the building’s _walls_?

Or maybe it was _Steve_? Maybe it was what had happened the night before last that made Tony decide to leave without any explanation? Maybe Tony found awkward the idea of having to live barely a couple of meters away from someone he’d had sex with? He probably had a shit ton of unreasonable rules on top of his cardinal ones about dealing with people he’d fucked in the past. Maybe Tony thought that since he’d already had sex with Steve—the only one in the building who was practically begging to be fucked and put out of his misery, it was high time to move on to greener pastures or—in Tony’s case, other buildings with tenants who were awkward introverts for him to seduce.

Whatever Tony’s reason was, it didn’t dilute the betrayal that Steve felt in his very bones. Tony was dead accurate when he’d described himself as an _asshole_ , all right, and Steve should have seen right through him. Steve shouldn’t have befriended him, trusted him, been charmed to the teeth by him, had sex with him, fallen in lo—

 _Shit, no_! Steve wasn’t gonna go there. It was _just sex_! It was meaningless, purely driven by base urges. It was intimacy without respect and affection. Because if Tony felt even an ounce of respect or affection for him, he would’ve at least said something about moving house instead of leaving Steve in the air to find out from someone else that Tony was gone.

Spurred by the anger burning in his insides, Steve’s thundered up the stairs, opened his apartment door (without pointedly looking at Tony’s apartment door), stormed inside his place to head directly to the bedroom. He changed out of his work clothes and into what he thought were more stylish clothes. He was going to go out, find a bar where he could get pissed, pick someone up—male or female, proposition them, bring them back here, and fuck their brains out. In true Tony Stark fashion. It was what Tony, himself, was probably doing right now anyway.

Well, two could play at that game.

Four hours, three daiquiris, five martinis, five shots of tequila sunrise, two clubs, three dances and two near-brawls later, Steve was opening the door to his apartment again to lead Har—Harlene?—Harley?—Honey?—or whatever her name was inside. She looked shy and ill-at-ease, but then again, how shy and apprehensive could she be if she chose to go back to the apartment of a guy she was meeting for the first time for a one-night encounter with him? This was almost too easy; there was a sucker living in practically every nook, cranny and corner of midtown, Steve didn’t know why he’d found this business difficult to begin with. All it took to convince this one to come home with him was an earnest, boyish smile, and she was putty in his hands.

Before long, they were both naked and needy on Steve’s bed. Steve, sheathed in a condom and buried to the hilt in Honey’s (he never did find out what her name really was before they started with the foreplay) warm and wet pussy, was breathing heavily as he pounded into the pliant body beneath him. He was hard, yes, but the participatory urge felt by his body didn’t quite reach his brain as the latter was still very much filled with thoughts of Tony.

Why did Tony just leave without speaking to him about it? If, by any chance, _he_ was the reason why Tony left, was it something he did? Something he said? Could Tony perhaps feel that Steve was becoming too attached to him that was why he opted to leave without even saying goodbye?

Honey’s keening and purring began to be on the disturbing rather than the arousing side. It was weird that she could mewl so loudly but just lie there, no more enthusiastic than a person who was sound asleep, looking to the side with her eyes closed.

But Steve kept to the program anyway. He was going to fuck his feelings of having been utterly betrayed by Tony away, even if it killed him. He picked up the pace when he started to feel the characteristic tightening of his lower abdomen, which meant that he was on the verge of his climax.

_“You will remember me—and this—forever, Steve Rogers. Your future lovers wouldn’t even come close…”_

The still smarting hickey on the side of his neck tingled like it was pierced with something electric and he could almost imagine warm breath against the shell of his ear as he orgasmed in powerful shudders, emptying himself on the condom he saw fit to put on, himself.

Oh, good lord, he had come so violently for his second one-night-stand in as many days with _Tony_ in his mind, in his ear, on his skin and everywhere else it was possible for someone to be while he was making love with someone _else_. If that wasn’t all levels of _sick_ , Steve didn’t know what was.

Instead of cuddling with the woman he had chosen to warm his bed tonight, Steve scrambled from the bed, ripping off the condom and throwing it in the trash near the door to his en suite bathroom. He entered the bathroom, closed and locked the door behind him.

He wasn’t ready to cuddle with someone else when every nerve ending of his skin could still remember the feel of Tony against him, the assurance that was Tony’s bicep at the back of his head, and Tony’s side flush against his.

This was what he was afraid of, he thought, as he slid to the floor of his bathroom with his back against the door. He was buck-naked but he couldn’t care less as he nibbled worriedly on his lower lip. This was the reservation he had so furiously pushed at the back of his mind that night he’d told Tony that he wanted to follow through on the brunette’s chosen incentive.

It was bad enough that he was attracted to Tony, but now… This was no longer just _physical attraction_ , was it? This was something… something _more_. And this was why Tony ignoring him on the day after they were together upset him; this was why Tony leaving without saying goodbye hurt.

He had gotten too attached, too involved with the man that he could almost swear he had fallen in lo—

No, he couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. He wasn’t gay or even bi. And Tony, except for the man’s very obvious physical appeal, wasn’t even Steve’s type even if he _were_ gay. Steve was attracted to the sensitive, affectionate, down-to-earth types, and Tony was _none_ of those things. He was about as far away from Steve’s type as the possibility of getting back together with Sharon was! _No…_ This was just some kind of superficial fondness for Tony because he was Steve’s first sexual experience after two long years.

And even if Steve really were attracted to Tony on a deeper level, it wasn’t as if he had any chance in hell. Tony’s left the apartment building, obviously to evade Steve; he’d left in such a way that even their _friendship_ was now put in question. Also, the likes of Tony Stark didn’t fall in love; love was for shmucks.

Steve had already pined for Sharon long enough that to pine for another unattainable person was just plain and simple stupidity and masochism of the highest order.

“So he just up and left. He didn’t give any indication as to what was wrong?” Sam asked, placing the Xbox controls on the center table after Bucky had beaten him by a slim margin on _Call of Duty_ that time.

It was the first Saturday since the conclusion of Tony’s Celibacy Challenge, and Steve was only too happy to return to his Saturday night norm of staying in his apartment, playing video games with his buddies and stuffing their faces with pizza and beer.

After the catastrophe that was Steve’s second one-night-stand the night before, when he had opted to barricade himself in his bathroom rather than stay with his conquest for the night, he was nearly frothing at the mouth to have things back to the way they used to be. It was a good thing the girl wasn’t too fussy or she would have called Steve out on abandoning him in favor of staying in the bathroom. Steve, for his part, walked her out of the building at the crack of dawn, much like what Steve had done for Jane’s friend, Lianne. It was the least that Steve could do after pulling a wham-bam-thank you ma’am on the hapless girl.

He wanted to blame it on Tony—much like all the other times that his dates didn’t quite turn out the way he wanted them to, but he knew better. The two one-night-stands were on him. Even if it was his distress over Tony that forced his hand and practically pushed him into the willing arms of those women, he was the one who had broken _his own_ cardinal rule not to fuck on the first date; there was no one to blame but him and his weak will.

“No,” came Steve’s unembellished and neutral reply. Actually, he didn’t want to talk about Tony anymore. It was just that Sam and Bucky had asked if there was any chance that Tony would be joining them, so Steve had to tell them that Tony had pulled a vanishing act and left the apartment building. The movers were currently in the process of boxing Tony’s stuff, but they haven’t started with the hauling yet. Steve had been tempted on several occasions to ask them (as casually as he could) where the stuff was going to be shipped off to.

Thankfully, his willpower was currently holding up when it came to that, and Steve was yet to ask.

“That’s really weird though. I’d’ve thought you and Tony had already become friends what with all the times you’d hung out together. He should’ve at least told you _something_ ,” Bucky observed, substituting his Xbox controller with a slice of fully-loaded pizza.

“Well, he didn’t.” Steve spat, a thunderous expression on his face. He was obviously still pissed off at his _former_ neighbor. “Maybe, for him, I never stopped being the enemy. After all, I cockblocked him for an _entire month_ ; there’s no love lost between us, even if we had learned to tolerate each other somewhat.” It sounded lame even to Steve. But it was the best reasoning he could come up with. It wasn’t like he could _ask_ Tony about his reasons for leaving because he didn’t know the man’s new address. And try as he might, he couldn’t think of why Tony would just abscond.

“Don’t you know the building where he works?” Sam so lucidly pointed out.

Steve shrugged. Sure he did, but he thought it was too much effort to march up to _Stark Industries_ and demand an explanation, which, Tony would probably point out, he didn’t owe Steve anyway. He and Steve were _barely_ friends that if Tony wanted to up and leave, he could, and Steve wasn’t supposed to give a shit.

The blonde was afraid, too, that if he were to see Tony and ask what the problem was, it would be clearly emblazoned on his face what Tony’s rebuff had made him feel. And then Tony would _know_ that Steve was in lo—

“It’s more trouble than it’s worth.” Steve knew it was an evasion of Sam’s question, but he had to put a halt to his internal rant for that way lay absolute damnation.

“That just sucks though,” Sam wistfully piped up again. “I liked that guy.”

Breathing a sigh through pursed lips, Sam finally gave the matter of Tony a rest. Bucky and Steve decided to undertake another round, and it was while they were well into this round that a knock sounded from Steve’s door, which Sam was kind enough to answer on the way back from the kitchen with Captain trailing behind him.

It was Thor, Clint and Scott bearing spicy chicken wings, ice cream and a grocery bag of chips, respectively.

It had been a while since Steve and his friends were joined by Steve’s neighbors. But Steve was quite glad to note that it was as if no time had passed between the fast friends that Sam, Bucky, Scott, Clint and Thor had become to one another; they greeted each other like old, bosom buddies.

It made Steve even more nostalgic that _Tony_ was not there to join them. Tony had injected himself in the dynamics with Steve’s friends so easily that Sam and Bucky were immediately curious if Tony was joining them and were disappointed to find out that Tony had moved out of the apartment building so suddenly.

The engineer had also won the favor of the rest of the tenants near-effortlessly that the first thing out of Clint’s mouth was: “hey Steve, did you ever get to talk to Phil about a possible forwarding address for Tony?”

“No,” Steve answered thriftily again, breathing a resigned sigh. It seemed that there was no avoiding the topic of Tony Stark in present company.

Scott had just ingested a mouthful of pizza, but he gestured that he wanted in on the conversation about Tony, too. “Ehrm—yeah, I heard about Tony moving out so suddenly, too. It came as a surprise, but do you know what else came as an even bigger one?”

There were murmurs all around prompting Scott to continue. “I got something in the mail just this morning—a certificate in _Cassie_ ’s name for a trust fund in the amount of _seven thousand dollars_. I gave a friend of mine who works in the same bank a call to ask about it, and he told me that the certificate was taken out on the say-so of one _Tony Stark_. I thought it was a fluke or, or—worse—some kind of criminal modus. You can just imagine my shock this morning!” Scott narrated in between animated bites of pizza and spicy wings.

Thor doubled over at that, nearly choking on his beer and spouting liquid out his nose. “Good God! But my Jane and I got the same thing! A trust fund certificate made out to no one in particular for seven thousand dollars and a _Post-it_ note that we are to ink in the name of our baby in the blank for the beneficiary. I thought it was a _joke_ —“

“— _please_ tell me you didn’t throw it out,” Clint interjected, aghast.

“—no, but Jane is planning on making inquiries with the bank about it, come Monday. So, you’re saying that came from _Tony_ , too?”

“Most probably,” confirmed Scott with a roll of his shoulders. “Maybe _I_ should ask Phil for a forwarding address for Tony just so I can go to his new place and thank him. This kind of thing shouldn’t just be done over the phone… The money will go a long way for Cassie’s college fund.”

“That’s what he was thinking of that’s why he wanted Cassie to have that money,” Steve let slip before he could realize what it was he was saying. He had known Tony’s plan about the proceeds of the SI betting pool. He was iffy about Tony’s motivations for giving the money to the children since the engineer-businessman barely knew their parents, but then Steve ended up admiring the man for that self-same decision.

“Whoa, so you _knew_ about it—that Tony intended to give the kids money?” Scott blurted out his query.

Yeah—so much for being privy to Tony’s plans about that money when Steve was absolutely kept in the dark that Tony had any intention to move out of the apartment!

“He just mentioned it to me. Casually. But as for really going through with it, I didn’t know,” Steve clarified, beginning to feel dejected again.

He was probably going to keep harking back to the confusion caused by Tony’s sudden desertion at least until he could find a reasonable purpose for it. For the nth time since he’d found out that Tony was gone, Steve questioned again: why _did_ Tony have to leave so suddenly? Why had he not told Steve that he was even thinking of moving? If he needed a bigger place as he’d told Clint just as he was going out the door, he could have at least made casual mention of it…

It was all so mysterious. And Steve was, plain and simple, heartsick over it.

He believed that he and Tony had become friends this past month that they’d hung out a lot and gotten to know each other beyond their first impressions and misconceptions. But apparently, they weren’t friends enough to warrant Tony being upfront with Steve about the matter of moving out.

Steve knew he wouldn’t be feeling like this… So rudderless, if Tony had only said something to him. But Tony saw it fit to keep it close to his chest, and now Steve didn’t know if Tony’s sudden decision to disappear had anything at all to do with what had happened between them.

It was, however, water under the bridge, or over the dam, or whatnot; Tony was gone, and Steve was too chicken to confront him for fear of having to come to terms about his _real_ feelings for his former neighbor.

 _Oh God—_ “I think I’ve had enough of _Call of Duty_. Who’s up for some _Assassin’s Creed_ this time?” Steve asked, in haste to change the subject.

-0-0-0-

Steve didn’t think there was a worse week than that time when Sharon first came clean to him about cheating and the days that followed that confession.

He drank himself to sleep most nights and cried during the nights when he wasn’t drunk off his ass. During the day, he either stared off into space or immersed himself with work like a man possessed. His colleagues at work avoided him and his friends and neighbors tiptoed around him because of his fluctuating moods: he was morose one moment and fuming, the next. After that week, it didn’t really get all that better, but he survived; he lived one day at a time, one decision at a time, exerting herculean efforts not to torment himself with thoughts of his ex and the man she had cheated on him with—if they fucked each other during the late nights she said she’d spent at work or during those times he didn’t accompany her when she’d said she was off to her aunt’s. He didn’t want to keep thinking about them, but he couldn’t help himself. He felt so betrayed and hoodwinked; he seethed for _months_ after that.

But it was that first week that held the record for The Absolute Fucking Worst Week in Steve’s life.

Not anymore.

Because this past week after Tony had up and left could easily give that week a run for its money.

It wasn’t that Steve drank or cried himself to sleep, no. This week was not particularly emotionally turbulent. People from work or around the building didn’t give him a wide berth as they did during that I-Found-Out-My-Girlfriend-Cheated-On-Me-Approach-At-Your-Own-Risk week. Hell, he was even able to finish a lot of deliverables at work.

But he would trade feeling empty and unaffected for feeling explosively angry and deceived any day! And that was what this past week had been like for Steve. He felt strangely purposeless and wretched until he ceased to feel anything at all. He just subsisted every day, doing the same things day after day. It was like there was nothing to look forward to anymore. He woke up, went to work, worked, clocked out of work, went home, ate dinner, fed Captain, watched a bit of TV and fell asleep all without any significant change in his mood—there was no up- or downturn to how he felt. Not even when he’d got a considerable sum approved from his usual mound of reimbursable. Not when the new girl had chatted him up and fished for an invitation for coffee (she baited; Steve didn’t bite). Not when he got a random text from Lianne asking him how he was.

It was as if he was just…indifferent.

And he had no one to talk to who would understand him about what he felt. He could barely understand it himself.

Perhaps all this emptiness stemmed from his deep, deep denial about these past days spent without Tony? Every time he found his thoughts straying towards the engineer, he would consciously wrestle his mind off that bag of cats by thinking of something else—something mundane. For the most part, he succeeded, too. But it was only whenever he was at the cusp of thinking about Tony that he would feel _something_. Ergo, no thoughts of Tony, no emotions whatsoever. And he just…went through the motions of everyday life.

It was like when Tony left, he took the color out of Steve’s life with him.

It was no way to live. To live without feeling anything. To live detached from everything you once held dear.

Yet, he couldn’t hate Tony for turning him into this empty husk. Why? Because he couldn’t fucking afford to _think_ about Tony in the first place due to his deep-seated denial; it was a vicious circle.

To try to get himself out of his current funk, Steve told himself that he was going to take the long way back home today. He was going to bisect Central Park, walk through the artist’s district where all the cafés and small art galleries were, and, if he were brave enough, maybe swing by the LGBT district where all the dance clubs, night markets and gay bars were. He was going to do everything, go everywhere if it meant he could stop feeling so disconnected.

He walked through the crowded sidewalk, going against the flow of the people rushing through the same space on their way home from work. He paid no mind to the people who bumped into him with muttered complaints and apologies.

He was out of it, unmindful of where he really was headed, but what froze him in his tracks was a familiar head of tousled brown hair four strides in front of Steve, standing three steps from the edge of the curb with his head bowed towards his mobile phone.

The crowd thinned and parted between them that it became unmistakable to Steve who it was. It was Tony.

Steve didn’t even notice where his feet had taken him until it was too late. He had walked these pavements before for a month that they’d become as known to him like the back of his hand. Of course, his feet and his wandering mind had taken him to the pavement in front of the _Stark Industries_ building, and right in front of him stood the only person who could make him feel anything and the one person he didn’t want to think about.

Time seemed to crawl to a stop as Steve stared his fill of Tony: those ever-guarded eyes framed by long eyelashes, the refined nose with the small dimple at the tip, those lips the corners of which, at that moment, were slightly quirked into a serene smile, the characteristic Van Dyke that only emphasized the soft curve to his jaw and neck. Tony was not in his usual spic-and-span day suit but in a soft-looking gray cashmere sweater, stonewashed Levi’s and topsiders.

This was as underdressed and not-as-put-together as Steve had ever seen of Tony on a regular day at the office. But the brunette still took Steve’s breath away. Tony was fucking beautiful; it wasn’t just what the eyes could see. Everything about him was beautiful—everything that Steve knew about: his sleaziness, his secret kindness, his sense of humor, his brilliance, his sarcasm, his vulnerability, his ruthlessness; and everything else that Steve was yet to know, but he found himself wanting to. And he so wanted to because—

_He was in love with Tony._

He was fucking in love with Tony Stark, and Steve couldn’t believe he was able to hold himself back from the realization for as long as he did. Because he was _gone_ —he was so far gone for this man, it was no wonder he had ceased to feel anything when Tony moved away. Tony had become Steve’s everything that things only made sense now that Tony was standing right in front of him.

The acceptance of what he felt spread both ecstatic fire and disheartening cold throughout Steve’s body as he motionlessly kept gawking at Tony, who was still clueless, staring intently at the face of his phone. Steve found himself unable to take one step closer to the object of his love.

Oh, but how he wanted to! He wanted to step right up to Tony and invade the man’s personal space, stare into those honey-gold eyes, ask why he’d moved out of the apartment building without telling Steve—ask if he’d decided to leave _because_ of Steve—ask if there was any way, _any way in the world_ , that he could feel the same thing for Steve as Steve felt for him…     

_“I told myself, I will never let my mother’s story be mine, too. I will never give any one person that much power to break me… I’m letting them have my body, but there ain’t no way they’re getting my heart._

_“Relationships may be for some people, but I’m just not built like some people. Relationships aren’t for me… I don’t do love, Steve; I’ve never been in love, and I don’t plan to if I can help it…”_

And how unfortunate was that? Steve was in love with someone who could never, ever love him back. He didn’t know if this was worse than carrying a two-year torch for someone who’d cheated on him.

He stayed put—stayed where he stood, hands clenched around the strap of his mailman bag, gaping at Tony but, deep in his heart, willing the other man to notice him there.

Tony didn’t.

Just as a lump had started to form in his throat, making it difficult for him to breathe without his eyes watering, Tony’s luxury sports car zipped by him and pulled up to the curb in front of the brunette. The eternal moment of drinking Tony in was broken, and Steve averted his eyes exactly at the same moment when Tony’s left his mobile’s screen to watch the valet get out of the driver’s seat.

Steve watched Tony share a joke with the valet. Tony thumped the valet’s shoulder before sliding himself into the driver’s seat and pulling the car door shut. The blonde remained unmoving. He stared after Tony’s car until it pulled out of the curb and vanished from his sight, into the thick of the early evening traffic of midtown.

Secretly nursing his pain that the rest of the world whizzing by him had no notion of, Steve chewed the inside of his cheeks. He didn’t know it was possible to bask in the feeling of being in love and be immeasurably heartbroken at the same time.

Apparently, it was.


	19. Chapter 19

The torque of the auxiliary gear in the third sector needed adjustment, and he needed to fix the bugs in the coding of the software—in clusters 723.1 to 723.837, which would probably necessitate a complete rethinking of that part of the coding to compensate for the lags in other sectors of the programming directly related to the—

“Tony—did you even hear a word I just said?” Pepper nearly shrieked, intruding into Tony’s laser-like focus on the mental list of things he needed to do for the SI product he was trying to put together from scratch. “What are you even doing? What _is_ that?”

“It’s a light armor. For the military. I’m planning to pitch this to the Secretary of Defense with Rhodey’s backing,” explained Tony but vaguely. He barely tore his eyes off the many computer screens he had set up in the spare bedroom of Pepper’s apartment where he’d been bunking for nearly two weeks now.

“Since when do we make weapons for the US Armed Forces?”

“We don’t. This isn’t a _weapon_. This is, strictly speaking, a form of _protection_ ,” Tony argued, now gifting Pepper with a quick once-over as if he was only just now realizing she was there.

“Semantics,” Pepper countered, crossing her arms over her bosom and tapping a sling-back high-heeled shoe against the wooden floorboards of her own living space. “You know, not that I don’t appreciate the huge improvement in your productivity these past couple of weeks, Tony, but don’t you think you’re taking things too far? I mean, _light armor_ for use in actual combat locations?”

“What—it’s in the same vein as _miniaturizing tech_ ,” Tony said defensively. “By the way—you were telling me something?” He averted his eyes away from Pepper and back to the complicated lines of coding he was trying to grapple with in his computer screens.

“Oh yeah! I dropped by your old apartment building and met with the building super to discuss any outstanding obligations you might have because of the pretermination of your tenancy,” Pepper began, sorting through the papers in the plastic folder she was carrying around. “I’ve returned your keys and duplicates and settled your obligations, and for your part, you need to sign these.” Pepper took out a thin sheaf of papers and brandished them towards Tony who’d already had his back turned towards her, partly to get back to work and partly to hide his expression from Pepper.

Tony wouldn’t put it past Pepper to be able to read through him, how the mere mention of his old apartment building brought back memories of Steve and the stark truth that must be shining out of his eyes like a beacon:

That he had fallen ass over teakettle in love with his former neighbor.

He was sure that if Pepper gleaned the truth, he was never going to hear the end of it.

“Just place them anywhere,” Tony directed dismissively. “And I’ll sign them later.”

Pepper didn’t speak for a while, and Tony thought she’d left him alone already when she snapped her fingers, remembering something. “Yeah—I suddenly remembered; I ran into someone just as I was leaving the apartment building,” she trailed off. “What’s his name—one of Steve’s friends… Ah yeah, that’s right, I remember now… _Sam_ ,” Pepper recalled with a victorious gesture. “I ran into Sam, and he knew who I was, and he says hi, by the way.”

“Hmm,” Tony distractedly acknowledged. It wasn’t exactly the type of news he would be waiting for with bated breath. Now, if it were _Steve_ that Pepper had ran into—

“I made polite small talk, asked him how he was and he’d told me that he was just on his way up to see Steve.” Pepper had finally said the magic word to garner Tony’s 100% attention, but he tried to downplay it by keeping at what he was busy with. Although, the truth was, he had started to tremble a bit at the mention of Steve’s name.

“He told me Steve’s been ill. For a couple days now.”

What? Steve was _what_? “What?” Tony asked; he felt cold all of a sudden.

“Sam said that Steve’s si—“

“—I heard you the first time, Pep. What I’m interested to know is ho—how long Steve’s been sick, exactly? And sick with what? Is it serious? Has he consulted with a doctor?” Tony knew that with every panic-laced question, he was giving Pepper more and more clues as to his real feelings for Steve Rogers. But, at that moment, Tony simply didn’t care anymore. He just wanted to know if Steve was all right.

Pepper looked at Tony curiously. She probably wasn’t expecting the barrage of concerned questions from him with regard to the matter of Steve being ill. With furrowed brows, she bored her bright (with suspicion) eyes into Tony’s. “Concerned much?”

“I was privy to how terrible that man’s illnesses can get. I was all Florence Nightingale on his ass just several weeks back, or have you forgotten?” Tony answered with a ‘tsk’ before averting his eyes back to his work. He was still shaking a bit, though. The news unsettled him.

What _was_ wrong with Steve?

“You should call him,” Pepper advised, leaning against the door jamb.

“Who? Sam?”

“No,” Pepper answered with derision. “ _Steve_. You should call him and ask if he’s all right. You moved out of the apartment building without telling him anything. He’s probably still wondering why you left,” pointed Pepper out. “Come to think about it, _I’m_ still wondering why you left, and it’s my apartment you’re currently crashing.”

“He’s not my keeper; I’m not under any compunction to let him know where I am every second of every day. I don’t have to explain _shit_ to him. We’re not _friends_ ,” said Tony, irritated.

“And yet, here you are, in a near-panic when you’ve found out that he was sick.” Tony was reminded yet again how he hated Pepper’s insightfulness sometimes. Combined with her absolute fearlessness to call him out on his shit, and Tony was just a cuss word shy of regretting ever being friends with her, most days.

“I worry about you, Tony. I really do. Because while I’m glad that you haven’t been mucking about my apartment, taking strangers home and having sex with them on my favorite couch, since you started bunking with me, this new pastime of yours—of moping about and inventing up a shitstorm just to take your mind off whatever it is you feel you need to stop thinking about—is not exactly a welcome alternative,” Pepper ranted. “And if _Steve_ ’s, somehow, the reason why you’re being like this, don’t you want to talk to him and get this off your chest and—I don’t know— _move on_?!”

“For the last time, Pepper, there’s _nothing_ to talk about with Steve,” said Tony, conclusively. “And I _was_ thinking of going out tonight. I’ve just been preoccupied with ideas lately, plus I didn’t want to have to suffer you giving me the death glare if I made the mistake of bringing someone back here with me,” Tony uttered by way of excuse.

The truth was he hadn’t had the urge to go out and bring someone back to the apartment with him since he had left his old place. He just said that to try to get Pepper off his case; he didn’t want his assistant/confidante getting wind that he had fallen in love against his best intentions and, God forbid, concluding that _Steve_ was the object of his affection.

Even though, she wouldn’t be wrong…

“Well, I’m giving you free rein of the place tonight, if someone ends up striking your fancy when you do paint the town red,” directed Pepper, shrugging her shoulders and letting go of what she was probably thinking of saying on the matter of Steve. “I’m staying over at my mom’s tonight. She needs a hand because my aunt’s flying in from Delaware,” she explained, tucking a loose strand of auburn hair behind her ears. “But, please, _please_ —if you could lay off my favorite couch, Tony, that would be awesome… I don’t want it peppered with _traces_ of anything _freaky_ when I get back tomorrow night, OK?” Pepper requested with a sardonic roll of her eyes.

“Jeez, Pep—what do you take me for?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Pepper spat back. “Get your act together or I’m telling _Rhodey_ and, trust me, you wouldn’t want that,” threatened the redhead before changing the subject.

“By the way—were you able to swing by that prospective apartment over on Trent?”

“Yeah, I dropped by last night. I didn’t like it,” Tony glibly muttered, furrowing his brows at the multitude of computer screens before him again.

“That’s the _seventh_ apartment you’ve rejected, Tony,” reminded Pepper, but noticing Tony’s look of impatience, tapped the breaks on her own irritation lest they ended up butting heads over this subject matter also. “Fine— _why_ didn’t you like it then?”

“I just didn’t—“

“—you just… _didn’t_ … That’s crazy, Tony—there’s gotta be something particular about the place that you found unacceptable—”    

“—do I have to have a reason?—“

“—yes, _normal people_ would have a reason for why they don’t like something—“

“I just didn’t like the _feel_ of it, OK? Plus, the building super looked like one judgey bitch. The tenants at that place are probably going to have an absolute field day gossiping about me,” maintained Tony, becoming argumentative. “I didn’t like the place. End of story. I’m sure you can find me another— _better_ —prospect.”

The place over in Trent was all right if maybe a bit too posh for Tony’s tastes. He’s already tried living in posh buildings before; the experience didn’t end well. The place had everything he needed off the top of his head: a great view, enough floor and closet space, _a working elevator_ ; it was even fully-furnished already. Contrary to what he’d told Pepper, he really couldn’t be sure what the other tenants were like as he’d met none of them (although, the super really did look like a judgey bitch).

But, he didn’t like the building. It just didn’t feel right.

It didn’t have Steve in it.

_Fuck._

“It’s not that I don’t like you staying here with me, Tony, but you do need your own place. You need somewhere you can freely work without disturbing anyone when you get up to hammering machine parts together at three in the morning. And I can’t always be kept on edge, dreading that one of these days, I would saunter into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and I’d stumble upon you bending someone over my kitchen counter and screwing the living daylights out of them. Because that would absolutely—no doubt— _traumatize_ me, and I would probably never be able to look at you the same way again,” Pepper reasoned, uncharacteristically talkative both with her words and with her facial expression changing from worried fondness to horrified very quickly. “You can’t keep rejecting these prospective apartments just because of inconsequential things.”

“I know, Pep,” conceded Tony with a resigned breath. He knew that Pepper was also making sacrifices hosting him in her apartment. He didn’t want to be an imposition, but he just didn’t feel good about the other apartments he’d been shown so far. “I promise, I will try to keep an open mind with the next one, all right?”

“Good enough for me, boss. So…” Pepper stood behind him momentarily to pat both his shoulders at the same time. “Try not to burn the place down, OK? My security deposit is exorbitant as it already is.” She made her way back to the door that would lead her out of the spare room, but before she stepped out to leave Tony to his own devices, she asked: “will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

“That will be all, Ms. Potts,” Tony answered giving her a quick but fond smile. “Give my regards to your rellies.”

“Will do. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And with that, Pepper was gone.

Tony was able to work for a grand total of twenty restless minutes after Pepper left him alone until he couldn’t ignore the burning anxiety in the pit of his stomach anymore. He wanted to know what was wrong with Steve. Badly. He could imagine an unconscious and red-faced Steve, cocooned in his blankets every time he blinked until it got beyond distressing and before he knew it, he was diving for his mobile phone.

Who should he call then? Should he call Sam? Then again, Sam would still probably be in Steve’s place right this moment, looking in on the blonde and making sure he was drinking his meds and hydrating. Would Sam even talk to him? Or maybe Steve’s already warned his friend not to give Tony the time of day because he was a right asshole for leaving without a word of warning or goodbye? Would Sam acknowledge him within Steve’s hearing distance, making Steve scowl and break into a furious fit of coughing? Would Steve feel even more snubbed if Tony called Sam instead of him?

Should Tony call _Steve_ instead then? Would Steve even talk to him or would the first things out of Steve’s mouth be about why Tony’d left all of a sudden? Perhaps Steve would just stare at the caller ID and, knowing it was Tony calling, just let it ring on and on without answering it?

Not to mention, what would Tony, himself, feel if he were to hear Steve’s voice? Would he be able to keep his cool and ask the things that needed asking? Or would he freeze up, end the call and, first thing tomorrow, order a new number from his mobile provider?

Tony didn’t know how long he stared at the face of his phone, chewing his lower lip. God—he’d never been this nervous of a fucking phone call before! He’d always been the self-assured type, and he had never doubted himself this badly in the past.

In the end, he lobbed his mobile back on the bed, got up from in front of his computers to shower, dress up and haul his ass out of Pepper’s apartment. He was going to go out, find a bar to drink his woes away, maybe pick up a sultry female or a mysterious guy and fuck the night away. If he was fucking his feelings for Steve away, there better be _some_ fucking involved.

He drove around aimlessly for the first hour, looking for a nice haunt. He settled on an out-of-the-way bar that he actually had not been to before. Better to stay somewhere he’d never been to before; there was less chance he’d run into someone he’d had sex with in the past…

He was nursing his second dry martini when a busty woman with tastefully-applied kohl in her already awesome bright green eyes sat next to him. They got into talking about their day jobs, what they did with their day and why they’ve chosen this dive to hang out in for the evening. Tony was in the process of moderately enjoying himself when the woman asked: “hey, you wanna get out of here and go somewhere quiet?”

Uh-oh. And Tony surprised even himself when he replied with: “love to, darling. But not tonight. I’m waiting for someone.” As lame excuses went, that was probably his lamest yet. How could that pass muster—waiting for someone, bleh—when he had no problems flirting with the girl before she asked him if he wanted to go somewhere else?! Lame…

Tony could tell the woman thought so, too. But, at least, she didn’t push. She casually excused herself to go sidle up with someone else who could give her a real good time that night. Tony must have been such a letdown.

It wasn’t that Tony didn’t want to leave the place with her. She was pretty enough and they’ve never met before. He truly didn’t know where that lame excuse came from—waiting for someone…

All he knew was that it felt… _wrong_. Like he was doing something inexcusable behind Steve’s back—whoa, whoa, _whoa_! When had he exactly developed a Steve-sized conscience? He and Steve weren’t an item to begin with; they just fucked as part of a dare. It wasn’t possible that he had now developed a sexual morality compass pointing to _Steve_ as its true north—

God… _dammit_!

Yep, Tony Stark was fucking screwed, all right. He should have known that very morning when he’d realized his true feelings while staring at a sleeping Steve Rogers how truly fucked he was. And after almost two weeks since he’d left his old place without saying goodbye to Steve, he was no less screwed than he had been at that after-sex moment. Steve fucking _owned_ him now.

“Hey there, gorgeous. This seat taken?” A not-half-bad-looking guy slid down on the seat next to his without waiting for confirmation if it was indeed free. The guy was wearing a white shirt underneath a leather motorcycle jacket, reminiscent of James Dean, and stonewashed denims and Chuck Taylors. His honey-brown hair was windswept as if he’d really taken his motorcycle to get there, and his gray eyes were filled with naughty mirth. He looked exactly like Tony’s type—mysterious and sleazy enough (but not too sleazy) to have an interesting night with.

“Hey, yourself,” Tony greeted back, maintaining a bit of detachment. He was suddenly hankering to be left alone even if James Dean look-a-like right there _was_ fascinating. Why the fuck did he think he was in the mood for a drink in a hopping bar?

“Wanna ride my cycle? We could have a really good time at my place.” Ugh, that better not be a euphemism for _something_ … Tony wondered if he had ever been _this_ sleazy.

“Can’t, stud. I’m waiting for someone.” Again with the I’m-waiting-for-someone lamest excuse in The Book of Lamest Excuses Ever…

“Are you sure they’re still coming? Looks to me as if you’re being stood up, and if you are, I don’t mind being a sub,” offered Mr. Sleazy-Enough. “Obviously, they’re not smart enough if they’re going to leave someone as hot as you hanging here.”

Actually, if Tony Stark was currently being pathetic, he had no one to blame but himself. He was the stupid one to run away with his tail firmly between his legs instead of looking Steve in the eye and confronting his feelings for his former neighbor head-on.

Like a light turning on right by his head, he suddenly realized that he was in the wrong place. “Thanks for the offer, stud, but no thanks.” Slapping some money on the bar, Tony slid off his seat and strode towards the bar’s exit without a backward glance at the _second_ easy lay he had rejected.

Fifteen minutes later, he was on the street where his old apartment building was, hunched down in the driver’s seat, eyes raptly observing the windows on the west fifth floor apartment that were ablaze with light. He had no plans of getting out of the car and giving Steve’s place a knock; he just wanted to keep an eye out so that if there was any emergency with a sick Steve, he would be ready.

It was the absolute zenith of pathetic. But he would much rather stay there than in any dive getting propositioned any day.

He watched as the apartment fell into darkness and, not five minutes later, Sam sauntered out of the building, turning towards the direction of the nearest subway station. He slid further down on his seat to hide himself in case Sam noticed the car, which he didn’t.

Tony stayed in vigil long after Sam had gone, reclining the driver’s seat to get as comfortable as he could. If Pepper were to find out that this was how Tony painted the town red, Tony was sure he would never hear the end of it.

Midnight came and went, but Tony stayed put. He was only jostled out of his half-asleep stupor when the lights to Steve’s apartment opened again, and Tony heard Steve’s dog, Captain, bark. Tony’s eyebrows narrowed, suddenly alert. He planned to ram his way in through Steve’s door if need be should Captain keep on barking; because then something was most probably wrong with Steve.

What he didn’t expect was to see Steve’s silhouette against his apartment windows. The shadow was nowhere near the real thing. Tony couldn’t see Steve’s lopsided grin, or the bright blue of his eyes, or the way his nose wrinkled at a particularly tasteless joke, but this was enough for Tony. At least, Steve was not too sick that he couldn’t get out of bed anymore.

“I’m here, Steve.” Tony murmured in the absolute silence of his sports car. “I’m just here.”       

He didn’t drive away even after the lights were turned off again and Captain stopped barking.

-0-0-0-

Tony went back to being up to his eyeballs in coding work after he had returned from his overnight vigil, hanging out in his car whilst parked along the street of his old apartment building, on the wee hours of the morning. He wanted his mind and hands occupied that there was no way he was going to do something impulsive: like call Steve and ask if the latter was all right.

Like he was a proper worried boyfriend. Tony almost gave an involuntary shudder at that.

He was not equipped to be _anyone_ ’s proper boyfriend, really, and especially not Steve’s. Steve deserved someone who could show him everything good there was in the world, someone Steve could be proud of, someone who hadn’t had nearly the entire state of New York go through their bed, someone who would pay attention to him and who was going to be his and only his for now and for always, someone who had moral fiber, someone who wasn’t a sleaze. Someone who wasn’t Tony.

Steve was better off with a complication-free, normal, heterosexual relationship with someone like Lianne Halliwell, for example. Tony was going to be no better than Sharon who would only bring Steve endless heartbreak. Tony was moral and loyal now, but three weeks down the line, he would probably be back to his old philandering self, and then where would Steve be? Worse off than when his ex had cheated on him… At least, Sharon only strayed with one person. Tony would stray with the entire Russian Ballet Company.

No. Tony was not—never going to be—boyfriend material.

He was focused for a good half an hour before his mind began to stray towards Steve again. What _was_ Steve sick with? What could possibly be ailing him? He was probably his usual stubborn self, refusing to be taken to the hospital.

Tony retinas were again bombarded with the image of Steve, barely conscious, red in the face, nestled in a cocoon of his blankets, breathing laboriously that he couldn’t see the coding on his screens anymore.

“Shit… Fuckity-fucking _shit_ …” Tony groaned, making grabby hands for his mobile phone. He just couldn’t take it anymore. He had to call _someone_! If he couldn’t call Steve, he was bloody well gonna call someone else and put himself out of his misery.

He made a decision.

“Yel-low…” The man on the other end picked up with a greeting.

“Hey, ehrm, Bucky—it’s Tony,” he said. It was stupid; of course, Bucky would have known who was calling. It would’ve appeared on the caller ID, wouldn’t it have? Stupid…

“Oh hey!” Bucky sounded genuinely pleased to hear from him. “What’s up?”

“How’re—how’re things… with you? How’s Nat?” He was calling out of the blue to ask after the guy’s girl. Real smooth, Stark…

“I’m great. Nat’s great. She’s taken on more classes at the dance studio where she works, part-time,” Bucky humored him. “But I have a feeling you’re not calling just to ask about me and Nat. Are you calling about something else? Or some _one_ else, maybe?”

Bucky was too damn smart for his own good. Then again, he was one of Steve’s best friends; of course, he wasn’t a fucking airhead. “Yeah, I, uh, I’d heard from Pepper who’d heard from Sam that Steve was sick. I guess, I, uh, just wanted to know if he’s, uh, all right…” Too many _uh_ s. Not good.

“He’s just been feeling out of sorts lately; it’s nothing serious, though, or I would have hauled him to a hospital, kicking and screaming, myself,” assured Bucky. “I’m in his apartment right now, actually.”

Oh, he was? “Oh… y—you are?” Tony’s hands unexpectedly became clammy. “I, uh, umm—I just called because I was just wondering if his illness was anything serious, actually. Listen, Buck—I know a lot of specialists and I have considerable pull in some midtown hospitals. If you ever need to consult with a specialist about Steve, I, uh, I’d like to help, if I can,” offered Tony. Even to his own ears, he sounded weird. Like that wasn’t why he was calling at all, but for lack of better options he was throwing in the offer anyway…

“Yeah? Awesome.” Bucky sounded pleased, at least. “I just might take you up on that. You know how stubborn Steve can be,” said Bucky as if Tony was someone familiar and who didn’t need further explanation about exactly how stubborn Steve could be.

“Yeah,” Tony trailed off, wistful.

“It’s great to hear from you, man,” Bucky said with a hint of amused laughter in his voice. “Sure you don’t want me to pass along a message?”

Tony thought about the wealth of possibilities brought about by that offer. He wondered how Bucky was going to fare if he really were to pass along a message about Tony’s real feelings for Steve. “Nah. Just keep my offer in mind, and if you need the help—you know—I’d be glad to refer him to various specialists.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind, _Tony_ …”

“Ehrm… Bye then.”

“Goo’bye,” Bucky said his goodbye quite animatedly before the connection was severed.

Well… That was that.

If he couldn’t be with the person he had fallen in love with—hell, he swore he wouldn’t even let Steve _know_ —that sure as hell didn’t mean he could stop looking out for them. Just like everything in his life, this was his conscious choice.

Steve deserved better. And had Steve not emphasized often enough in the course of their short association that he was _straight_? Tony had no chance in hell with Steve. Even if he did have a chance, he, himself, would’ve dissuaded Steve from getting together with him. He was a textbook disaster waiting to happen. Steve deserved better; he really did.

And Tony loved him enough to recognize that.


	20. Chapter 20

Steve held himself back from groaning out loud for the nth time lest Bucky call him an over-the-top diva or something. He felt horrible; it was always thrice as terrible for him to get the flu, or colds or just to feel under the weather. But this time, having the sniffles was only part of the reason why he felt like death warmed over. The greater part of the reason was _Tony_. What he felt for Tony. What he felt for Tony that could no longer be ignored, denied or consigned to his subconscious because it permeated his every waking moment and made practically every inhale painful.

Bucky was bustling about in the kitchen, having let himself in the apartment to deposit a small amount of groceries for Steve and some takeaway barbecued chicken for dinner. All the while, his friend was telling Steve about his day at work.

He had just placed a tray of the takeaway chicken, some bread, Steve’s meds and a tumbler of water at the foot of Steve’s bed when Bucky’s mobile phone trilled loudly. He had barely looked at the caller ID before he was taking the call with an animated, “yel-low…”

Pause. “Oh hey! What’s up” Bucky stepped out of Steve’s bedroom to take the call in the living room. Why he had to do that, Steve didn’t know. He knew all of Bucky’s other friends anyway; Bucky didn’t need to keep any phone conversation secret from him.

Steve curiously observed Bucky’s inscrutable face as the latter conversed over the phone. Who could it possibly be?

“He’s just been feeling out of sorts lately; it’s nothing serious, though, or I would have hauled him to a hospital, kicking and screaming, myself. I’m in his apartment right now, actually.” Steve caught Bucky’s response. So, the caller was asking about _him_? Steve started to wonder in earnest who it could possibly be. Did they have a common friend, apart from Sam, who might give a damn about Steve’s well-being?

“It’s great to hear from you, man. Sure you don’t want me to pass along a message?” Bucky asked, re-entering Steve’s bedroom with the phone still pressed against his ear. For his part, Steve tried to appear nonchalant, noting, however, that it was a _man_ that Bucky was speaking to. He was tremendously curious now…

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind, _Tony_ …Goo’bye,” Bucky said by way of goodbye. It didn’t lose any significance to Steve that Bucky emphasized the name so that it was unmistakable to Steve who it was he had been talking to.

He couldn’t help himself from giving a perceptible start when he heard that Bucky was speaking to _Tony_. And of course, seeing as, between the two of them, they knew only one Tony. It was safe to deduce that it was _Tony Stark_ who had given Bucky a ring. To ask about Steve. To ask about Steve’s well-being.

The reason why Tony would give _Bucky_ a call to ask about Steve instead of calling Steve directly was beyond the blonde’s comprehension, though.

“That was Tony,” Bucky (the jerk) emphasized in case Steve was stupid enough to have missed it. “You know… your former neighbor—“

“—yeah I kinda got that,” Steve muttered, thunderously. “What did he want?” Steve asked as neutrally as he could. He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief that his voice didn’t break. The last thing he needed was for Bucky to notice how close to sobbing he really was.

“He wanted to know if you were all right because he’d heard that you were _sick_ ,” began Bucky. “He offered that he knew a lot of specialists if you needed to consult with anyone about _being ill._ ” His friend enunciated the last two words like he, himself, was doubtful if Steve really was physically sick or if there was _something else_ that ailed him.

“Big of him,” Steve practically spat, contemptuous. He was annoyed that Tony was kind enough to ask after his health now when two weeks ago, the brunette just up and left without a word to Steve about it. Like a grade-A asshole.

But, at the same time, Steve felt his heart expand and electricity course through his spine all the way to the tips of his toes and fingers. Tony must care about him, even just a little, if he took the time to give Bucky a call to ask after Steve’s health. It was a long-shot, Steve knew, but he’d take what he could from Tony.

He wanted to groan out loud again. His insides were roiling.

“Stevie, come on, man—this isn’t the colds talking anymore, is it? This is something else,” accused Bucky, sitting on the corner of Steve’s bed. “What really is wrong with you, pal? This moaning and groaning is so unlike you. You never liked feeling helpless whenever you’re sick. But this time, it’s as if you’re completely content with letting whatever ails you get the better of you,” observed Bucky putting his left leg on the bed at an angle just to give him a better position to look at Steve who lay prostrate and miserable on his unmade bed. “I haven’t seen you like this since Sharon’s infidelity.”

Oh, but the way he felt when he’d found out about Sharon’s cheating got nothing on what he was feeling now. This time, it was like the world had stopped making sense.

“I’ll be fine, Buck,” assured Steve with a sad smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He didn’t know where to start in explaining the situation to Bucky. He didn’t know how his best and oldest friend was going to take it if he suddenly confessed that he was madly in love with a guy, and with Tony _I-don’t-do-love-and-commitment_ Stark to boot! “I’ll just have to shake this off.”

“Shake _what_ off, Steve?” Bucky pressed. “We’ve been friends for a long time, punk. Now is not the time to start keeping secrets from each other.”

“Even if I try to explain, you wouldn’t be able to handle the truth, Buck. _I_ can’t handle it myself,” Steve complained, sitting up in a lotus position on his bed and raking a frustrated hand through his blonde hair.

“Try me,” challenged Bucky, leaning forward and raising a questioning eyebrow.

Steve breathed a deep sigh, closed his eyes and tried to calm the tempest in his insides. “I think I might be in love with Tony,” Steve blurted it out all at once; it was like yanking off a Band-Aid.

“What makes you think that? You aren’t even gay,” calmly pointed Bucky out. All things considered, the former soldier was taking it all very well.

“I _didn’t use to_ be gay,” enunciated Steve, chewing his lower lip intermittently. “But you know about the guys I tumbled around with in high school—“

“—yeah, because we were _experimenting_. Hell, I experimented on my sexuality back in the day also,” argued Bucky. “Just because you think you find a guy attractive doesn’t mean you like them sexually or you’re in love with them. I mean, granted, Tony is a very good looking guy, but how can you say that you’re—what—in love with him?”

“Because I feel for him what I used to feel for Sharon, only a _hundred times_ worse,” contended Steve. “I liked being with him. I liked myself when I was with him, and now that I can’t be with him, I just feel… _lost_.”

There was a short pause as Steve’s guts churned while he waited for Bucky’s reaction regarding his confession. He didn’t know what he would do if he lost Bucky and Sam’s friendship because of this realization about himself. But he was also tired of denying the truth about what he felt.

“You’re not telling me the whole story, Steve,” Bucky warned. “This is beyond just liking it when you hang around with him… What really happened between you and Tony?”

He really hated it when Bucky could see right through him. “Remember Tony’s Celibacy Challenge?”

“Yeah…”

“I was policing him, so we were always together,” Steve explained, worrying his bottom lip for real now as he chewed and chewed on it. “But remember when you suggested that the Incentive System would be more effective?”

“OK…”

“We _did_ establish an incentive. The incentive was, should he succeed, he got to have sex with someone he’d never had sex with before—“

“—I knew it was going to be about sex with that man,” muttered Bucky, but nodding towards Steve to prompt him.

“It was me.”

“Wait… what? I don’t get it…”

“The incentive he asked for, was to have sex with me,” Steve elaborated. He worriedly looked into Bucky’s eyes as if willing him to understand so Steve didn’t have to say it out loud.

“Noooo…”

“Yeah,” confirmed Steve with a look of utter defeat.

“You had sex with him?! You had sex with _Tony Stark_ ,” Bucky stated with blue eyes bugging out in shock.

“He was my first sexual experience in two years,” groaned Steve. And he fucking loved every second of those sexual encounter _s_. “So I dismissed my feeling as something similar to when newly-hatched chicks imprint on the first thing they see, you know? Just some kind of sick, sexual attachment to him…”

Bucky was still motionless in shock. Not even a blink.

Steve continued, “but it’s not like that anymore, Buck. I just want to always be with him, listen to him talk about his day, watch him laugh, observe him inventing stuff. I could even do without the sex—although the sex was _freakin’ fantastic_ —“

To which, Bucky finally reacted by raising a halting hand in a gesture of _spare me the gory details_. “You can stop right there, Stevie; I get it you’re _in love_ with Tony…”

Steve breathed another pained sigh. He thought if he finally told someone, the pressure in his chest was going to let up. He was wrong.

“Why don’t you hunt his ass down and tell him how you feel, then?” Bucky suggested, shifting where he sat on Steve’s bed.

“Are you _kidding_? He’d laugh in my face,” Steve replied. “He kept on emphasizing to me, over and over, that he was not built for love and commitment. Imagine how that would sit with him if I approached him and confessed my undying love. It’d be like professing love to a brick wall.” Steve reclined back on the mountain of pillows pushed against his bed’s head board. “Maybe that’s the reason why he left in the first place. He could feel that I was getting attached to him, so to nip things in the bud, so to speak, he just saw it fit to get as far away from me as possible.”

Bucky breathed a deep sigh of his own, commiserating with his best friend.

“Are you disgusted?” Steve asked, his voice uncharacteristically small.

“ _Disgusted_? Why would I be disgusted?” Bucky asked with a sympathetic tinge to his gray-blue eyes.

“Because we’ve been friends all our lives and it’s only now that you’re finding out that, apparently, I’m attracted to men, too.” That would literally do Steve in, if, on top of losing Tony, he was going to lose his friends as well because of his sexual orientation.

In a flash, Bucky bridged the distance between the two of them to whack the side of Steve’s head with an indignant gasp. “How dare you even think that, Steven Grant Rogers?! We _have_ been friends all our lives, so you should know me well enough by now to know that it takes more than that to not be your friend anymore. Stupid punk…”

“You think _Sam_ is gonna mind that I bat for both teams?” Steve asked, rubbing against the smarting side of his head.

“You want me to hit you again? ‘Cause I’ve no qualms about hitting you even though you’re sick…”

“Right, right—no. Once is enough,” Steve said with a curt laugh. He had the best friends in the world. He didn’t know why he even doubted that they’d be on his camp… whatever his orientation was.

“So, what are you going to do about Tony?” Bucky asked after a period of assessing silence. “Are you ever going to tell him how you feel?”

“I don’t know, Buck,” Steve breathed a resigned sigh that time. He imagined in his mind’s eye, telling Tony about how he felt for the brunette. He guessed Tony was probably going to try to highlight his terrible qualities, why he wasn’t commitment-material or why Steve deserved better. And Tony would probably be right. But Steve discovered that he really didn’t mind those appalling qualities; he was ready to deal with the bad along with the good.

If Tony would just let him…

“I really don’t know,” murmured Steve, more to himself than in response to his friend.

-0-0-0-

“Congratulations on getting her to say _yes_ to you, dude,” Scott praised with a fierce grab of Clint’s shoulder, amusement unmistakable on his face even with the ever changing lights in the dance club they were in. “Mr. Bachelor is _finally_ tying the knot!”

All of the residents of their Walker Street-apartment building were accounted for as they celebrated Clint Barton and Laura Clyde’s engagement in _Zenith_ , an outlying but still surprisingly popular dance club. Phil, Scott, Wanda and Pietro, Thor and Jane (drinking her weight in fruit juice), and Steve were all there to toast the soon-to-be-married couple.

Laura was only too happy to regale the group with the story of how she and Clint met and fell in love: Laura was a veterinary assistant in Clint’s pet Lucky’s veterinary clinic, and one might say that Lucky had a lot to do with bringing them closer together until Clint finally got up the nerve to invite her for coffee, which quickly turned to a dinner, and then to regular dinners; Clint, eventually, ‘fessed up on his love for Laura, and they were officially a couple for _four and a half years_ up until Clint popped the question, which Laura happily accepted just that morning.

Apparently, Laura was the _friend_ that Clint would leave Lucky with whenever he couldn’t take the dog to his workplace.

Steve still felt a bit under the weather (not to mention, a _lot_ forlorn) but was, nonetheless, glad that he had dragged himself out of bed and temporarily out of his funk to join the festivities. Thankfully, Bucky didn’t bring up the topic of Tony again, and Sam, when it was his turn to look in on Steve, was already given the heads-up by Bucky not to give Steve more grief over it. Sam just gave Steve a tight hug that conveyed a helluva lot, and Steve was again reminded of how lucky he was to have the friends that he has.

The club was packed with revelers enjoying the thumpa-thumpa of the music, the exploding lights, the hilariously-named drinks and the company of their mates. The place wasn’t as exclusive as _Marvel_ , the only other dance club Steve had ever been to, but the ambience still carried with it the promise of an exciting night ahead.

“But what _I’m_ waiting for is when _Steve_ here brings along a new lady love to get-togethers like this,” Clint countered, giving Steve a conspiratorial wink. Steve snorted under his breath. Unbidden, his thoughts were steered towards Tony again. He hated it; he hated himself.

“Steve just might surprise us all one of these days, right Steve?” Jane echoed Clint to raucous _hear, hear_ s from the rest of the people on their table. Each and every one of the people there had been witness to Steve’s descent to the nth recesses of hell post-Sharon, so of course, it was only natural for them to harp about Steve’s protracted grieving period.

His only response was a wistful smile. He _had_ already moved on. It was just that what (or _who_ ) he had moved on to, no one was ever going to guess or make sense of—not even in their wildest dreams.

Thinking (again) about Tony, though, escalated things pretty quickly for Steve. That was his cue to start throwing back drink after drink after drink. He wanted to stop feeling despondent; he wanted to stop thinking about Tony fucking Stark. The drinks kept coming, and soon enough, everyone on the table, except for pregnant Jane, was deliciously tipsy.

None of them were as smashed as Steve was, though, who had already started to become talkative in this state: he was officially half a vodka shot away from being three sheets to the wind.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Clint stopped him from throwing back yet another shot, causing half of the colorful drink, the name of which he had already forgotten, to slosh out of the shot glass and onto his lap. “You mi’ wanna step o’the brakes, bud,” Clint slurred. “Yo’ fuckin’ _hammered_!”

“So’re you!” Steve protested, flicking Clint’s ear. Clint, after that, turned towards his bride-to-be and put his lips near her ear. Steve presumed he whispered something funny or endearing at least because Laura threw back her head, laughed and then looked at Clint like he hung the moon and stars in the evening sky.

Clint was a lucky sonofabitch, all right.

Steve made the mistake of shuffling in his seat to get an eyeful of Thor and Jane, next, and caught the couple making googly eyes at each other despite the near-dizzying, ever-shifting light and darkness in the dance club.

Why did some people have all they could ever want when it came to love and Steve had nothing? Steve was awkward and at times too stiff and serious when it came to dating; he’d thought he had finally found his soulmate in Sharon, but she’d cheated on him for a complete douche; and now, he’d had a life-changing paradigm shift on the matter of his sexuality, found himself in love with a man who, himself, didn’t believe in love and commitment, and was deserted—heartbroken, alone and miserably pining for the said man possibly for the next couple years, because a two-year grieving period seemed like the _minimum_ for his sorry ass.

He must have looked like he was ready to upchuck half the contents of his stomach where he sat because Laura, with concern blooming on her face, asked, “Steve, are you all right?”

Steve waved a dismissive hand and, fast as lightning, was on his feet with a muttered, “n—need t’go to the restroom, b’ righ’ back…”

The restroom for men was blessedly not as crowded for a place as hopping as _Zenith_ was that evening. Steve washed his face and relieved himself in relative peace. He was awarded some surreptitious once-overs, but thankfully, the propositions reached a grand total of zero; he must look more standoffish than he thought.

He took his time in one of the urinals located at the rear of the restroom, pressing his hot forehead against the cool tile wall. Debating with himself whether or not coming to Clint’s engagement celebration was a mistake after all, Steve mulled his life so far. He wanted to drink until he couldn’t remember why he wanted to get drunk in the first place, but a part of him also hoped he had never left the comfort of his apartment where he had been holed up these past couple of days, licking his wounds.

Steve didn’t know it was possible to miss what he never had to begin with, but he did. He missed Tony and what could’ve been so damn much that he envied them who had found love—Clint and Laura, Thor and Jane… and actually _kept_ it.

He wondered if it was in the cards that he might be given another shot at it, too because he would give anything, _anything_ to have the chance with Tony…

Like ice water to the face, it dawned on Steve that if he wanted a shot with Tony, he damn well better get off his ass and do something about it. Like tell Tony how he felt, for starters. While it was a risk that Tony was just going to laugh in his face or feel sorry for him, Steve believed it was still better to be proactive about it rather than wallow any further in his misery.

At least, Tony could let him down easy for some kind of closure, and maybe he’d be able to move on.

With new-found sobriety and purpose, Steve zipped his jeans up, washed and dried his hands, and pulled his mobile phone out of his front jeans’ pocket. He was going to call Tony right now and ask if they could meet somewhere. If Tony refused to answer, he was going to keep trying anyway; and if Tony took his call, he wasn’t going to take any of the man’s excuses lying down. They _were_ going to meet, and Steve was going to tell Tony how he felt if it was the last thing he did!

He was just barging out of the restroom when he ran right smack into someone coming in.

“I’m so sorry,” mouthed Steve, absent-mindedly. Until he realized who it was he’d ran into. “Tony…”

How serendipitous…

God, why did Tony have to look so put together while he looked so wretched?

Then again, Tony closely resembled a cornered wild animal, realizing, for his part, that it was Steve that had bumped into him. “S—Steve… What are you— _Heeey_ … It’s, uh—it’s great to see you…”

Oh, this was straight out of some shit daytime soap opera, all right!

“It’s, um, great to—to see you, too. Tony…” Steve wished he could breathe a relieved sigh that he, for the most part, sounded noncommittal. He doubted if it would do him any good if he were to sound like he felt: he felt like sobbing.

“How are y—I mean, what…what are you, uh, doing here?” Tony asked and Steve caught the other man’s cringe. He didn’t know how to interpret it.

“Engagement party. And you?” Steve asked, shrugging and stuffing his phone and his fists inside his pockets to keep Tony from noticing that he was trembling.

Tony nodded in acknowledgment of Steve’s answer, and then replied, “celebrating the birthday of a close personal friend who’s also an SI investor.” He gestured and observed by way of follow-up, “you look like you’re recovering well from your last illness.”

“Yeah… it was just common cold. Nothing that some superb, all-I-can-eat chicken soup couldn’t fix,” answered Steve with a half-smile. And Sam _did_ bring him the most superb chicken soup courtesy of his girlfriend, Leila.

“That’s good… That’s good,” Tony trailed off, absently.

Steve could’ve grimaced at the awkwardness of it all.

Luckily, it was at that moment that he felt a gentle hand on the center of his back. “There you are. We were all getting a bit worried.” It was Laura, who had obviously just come from the female restroom. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Oh hey—yeah, I’m uh, I’m good,” Steve reassured, then, turning towards Tony, introduced. “By the way—Laura, this is Tony—Tony Stark, a former tenant in our apartment building. Tony, this is Laura, a _soon-to-be resident_ in the building.” He looked at Laura with an amused grin while Laura playfully smacked him on the bicep with a smile that must have been what made Clint fall for her. “I was just telling Tony about the engagement party.”

Tony momentarily looked stunned, but recovering, said, along with an offer of his hand, “pleasure to meet you, Laura.”

“The pleasure is mine, Tony. You should join us. Any friend of Steve’s welcome to,” invited Laura, accepting Tony’s proffered hand. Because she was nice like that. And of course, she wouldn’t know that Steve would rather volunteer to undergo any medieval torture device than be on the same table with Tony right now.

“So, you’re the lucky lady huh?” Tony jested with a smile that could’ve been carved out of stone.

“Yup, that’s me—the bride-to-be,” Laura joked back. “We’re just a couple of tables to the left of the bar—there, if you’d care to join us.”

“I might…just take you up on that offer later,” said Tony. There was something else in those gold eyes then, but Steve couldn’t quite make it out. “But, uh, for now, I really gotta go to the little boys’ room. It was great to run into you, Steve.” Something flashed in those eyes again—was that pain? Longing? Regret? Resignation? Steve couldn’t tell because it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Maybe Steve was reading into this something that wasn’t even there; maybe it was wishful thinking. “And you know, in case I get caught up in my friend’s party, have a—have a…good…life.”

And Tony couldn’t get away fast enough after that.

What the—

What the hell was—

What the _fuck_?!

_“Have a good life.”_

“Clint’s told me about him, about Tony,” mouthed Laura to him as they made their way back to their table. Steve was still confoundedly stunned.

_Have a good life?_

Did Tony just say that? To _him_. _Have a good life._ The hell… What was Tony on about, saying that?

Of course, those parting words didn’t sit well with Steve at all. It pissed him off and frustrated him even more than he already was that once he and Laura were back to their table, Steve took to drinking his weight in tequila and vodka again.

If that was how Tony wanted to play it, then fine by Steve! There were—what—eight million other people in New York City alone; Steve could date a different person each night for the rest of his life and not even make a dent in the city’s population. Tony wasn’t the last person that Steve was ever going to love. Steve would show him; Steve could lick this, move on from this funk and come out the other side a better person than he was, coming in.

The blonde kept a running diatribe in his head. The ache in the vicinity of his chest wasn’t going away now, but he was sure that, someday, this, too, would pass.

Soon enough, he was back on the verge of being completely hammered that the rest of his party were already employing various ways, each more creative than the last, to get him to stop throwing back drinks. But Steve wasn’t going to be deterred.

“Come on, buddy, walk us out—me and Laura. We’re calling it a night,” Clint urged, hauling Steve to his shaky legs.

“A’ready?! Y’ can’ be seri’sly goin’ome a’ready…” The blonde slurred, letting himself be dragged away from the table by Clint.

At the entrance to the club, goodbyes were exchanged and Clint and Laura left in a cab together. Steve, swaying on the balls of his feet, was on his way back inside the club when he felt the fiercest urge to puke. Plowing through the hangers-on by the side of the club, Steve ran to a clump of bushes and upchucked his guts out.

Lovely, he was probably going to pass out on this, here, vacant lot and wake up without a memory of how he’d got there come morning. He didn’t know how long he retched in the foliage in the cover of darkness, but he must have stayed there pretty long because by the time he was ready to return inside, the hangers-on outside of the place had already considerably thinned.

True enough, he must have stayed out, puking his innards, longer than he thought because when he got back to their table, it was already being wiped clean and his friends were already gone.

“Shit,” murmured Steve, palming his face.

So what did he do then? He went to the bar and ordered more drinks. He was a masochist like that.

He stayed at the bar until a bouncer approached him to tell him that the club was closing for the night, complete with a threatening muscle flex in case Steve had it in him to get shifty.

Breathing to try to keep himself from vomiting anew, Steve silently hobbled out of _Zenith_ , drunk as a skunk but, unfortunately for him, his brain neurons were still firing, reminding him of the sting of Tony’s parting words.

_“Have a good life.”_

Steve’s new chance at love was lost before he’d even realized he _had_ found love.

His life was _anything_ but good at the moment.

Finally succumbing to the unsteadiness of his legs, Steve slumped on the hard pavement on his denim-clad butt, in front of the vacant lot adjacent to _Zenith_ , fighting off the prickling feeling of unshed tears in his eyes.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it gonna be a happy ending for our boys?

Tony was so shaken because of his encounter with Steve outside the restrooms that he’d hidden out in the club’s function room where his friend’s party was being held and refused to go anywhere else, not even to send the birthday celebrator off after they’d all called it a night. The engineer only deigned to leave, thinking it was already safe enough, when the club was already closing.

There were still a handful of people hanging out on the sidewalk outside of the bar, though, but Tony paid them no mind. He only flashed his valet stub at the attendant for his car to be taken out front before he was back to the depths of his thoughts about Steve and their chance encounter earlier.

He had to hand it to Steve. The man sure worked fast, getting himself _engaged_ in just a little over _three weeks_ , _and_ Laura _was_ beautiful, too. Tony hated the way his insides squeezed themselves into knots when Laura, with obvious worry for Steve’s well-being, accosted them outside the restrooms.

Tony couldn’t help but be curious, though, if Steve had already known and had been pining for Laura these past two years, but the blonde just hadn’t had the courage to make a move on her until recently with Tony’s instruction and encouragement. Because Tony had never pegged Steve to be the type to go for whirlwind romances regardless of the latter’s desperation to move on from Sharon in the fastest time possible. It was curious that Steve had never mentioned Laura before and even went out on those couple of blind dates, but here he was, getting engaged so soon!

Had Steve, maybe, gotten her knocked up or something? Didn’t Sam say that Steve was noble like that? He’d not think twice about marrying a girl if he’d gotten her pregnant. Or maybe _some other asshole_ had gotten her pregnant and Steve, moved by the sob story, _volunteered_ to take on the responsibility of fatherhood like the fucking _saint_ that he was? Those things were only supposed to happen in clichéd daytime soap operas, weren’t they?

Ah _shit_! This wasn’t supposed to be Tony’s concern anymore. He’d already made his choice to forsake his feelings; there should be no backsies on that decision, dammit.

No matter how much he’d wanted to reach out and touch Steve earlier, tell him that Tony’d missed him, envelop him in an embrace and take comfort in his beating heart against Tony’s—

No backsies, _shit_ …

Regardless of how Steve had met Laura and how hasty their engagement was, it was done. Steve was already someone else’s, and Tony was alone. As he ought to be.

In time, he would get used to it again.

Chewing his lower lip, Tony let his eyes wander around him, to try to distract himself. The remaining club revelers looked like they could still use another party to crash as most of them still looked hyped-up. Save for this one guy who was slumped on the pavement, falling asleep on his ass. If the guy didn’t watch it, he was going to be intimately acquainted with the cement surface of the roadway in the next three minutes; he’d be lucky if he didn’t lose his front teeth in the process…

The guy shifted a bit where he sat and in the light of the streetlamp overhead, Tony recognized him, which made the engineer double take in shock. “ _Steve_?!”

Steve looked towards the direction where the call had come from, and Tony felt like he was jabbed in the mouth when he saw Steve’s grief-stricken expression. That, however, didn’t stop Tony from taking a step towards the blonde. “My God, Steve, are you OK?”

Why did he let up on the alcohol earlier, why? Tony thought he was nowhere near drunk enough to be able to handle this. _Again_. He was one unlucky sonofabitch, all right…

To Tony’s utmost surprise, Steve erupted into peals of humorless laughter before, getting a hold of himself, replied: “Y—you…you’re ask—asking me if I’m OK? You’re asking me—do I _look_ A-OK to you, Stark?” His words were slurred, but he sounded coherent enough.

Tony didn’t know how to answer that. So he kept his trap shut.

“No,” lucidly continued Steve. “No, I’m _not_ OK—“

“—what are you still doing here? Are you waiting for someone? Where’s Laura?” Tony asked in rapid-fire succession, interrupting Steve.

“ _Laura_? Laura’s gone home with Clint—wait…why are you asking me about _Laura_?”

“Why would Laura go home with _Clint_?” Tony asked again, in complete disregard to Steve’s own question.

“Uh— _duh_ … Because they’re _engaged_ , why else?” Steve spat, cocking his head to look up to Tony from the level of the pavement. The blonde obviously thought there was something wrong with giving Tony that advantage, so Steve began to shuffle back on his feet.

Huh? Engaged? Wait— “Wait… Laura’s not engaged _to you_ but _to Clint_?—“ Had he gotten it all wrong maybe?

“ _What_?” Steve looked confused now, too, apart from being heavily plastered. “You thought _Laura and I_ were engaged? Why the hell would you think that?”

Because when the green-eyed monster had reared its head earlier, Tony’s higher brain functions all but stopped working. He took the words they exchanged quite literally and just deduced, somehow, that Laura was engaged to be married to Steve when, in point of fact, she was engaged to marry someone else!

“I just thought…” But Tony stopped explaining. He was in dangerous territory; best to shut up now lest he let slip something incriminating to Steve. He told himself to remember his decision; there was supposed to be no take-backs.

The valet attendant chose that precise moment to pull up to the curb in Tony’s sports car.

“You’re hammered, Steve,” Tony said, matter-of-factly. “You’re in no condition to commute or walk by yourself at this state. If you’re not waiting for someone, let me take you home.” He knew that was the ultimate self-immolation—volunteering to take Steve home, be alone with him in Tony’s car, be confined in such a small space with him. But Tony was nothing if not bold. And stupid. Boldly stupid.

Steve snorted at that. “How very un- _asshole_ -y of you. You can stop right there, Stark. Pretending to be concerned for me,” Steve hawked angrily and continued, “when the truth is, you don’t give _a shit_ about me or you would’ve had the decency to tell me you were moving out of the building; you could’ve said goodb—you know what? This doesn’t matter anymore. _You_ don’t matter to me anymore.”

The only way Steve could’ve hurt him more was if he’d fired a shotgun straight through Tony’s chest.

Tony swallowed the hollow ache those words had blown through his heart. He, of course, deserved every syllable of it. He was a fucked-up, high-class, grade-A asshole. The brunette could take every hateful word if it meant Steve would look less tormented by having Tony near.

Steve moved to stomp away, going around Tony, but he was still shaky on his feet that he tripped in an ungainly way. The blonde would have fallen on his face had Tony not caught him by the torso. Steve didn’t appreciate Tony’s aid, however, as he tried to wriggle out of Tony’s hold as if the brunette’s mere touch stung.

“I don’t have to matter to you, but I’m taking you the fuck home even if it means dragging you, kicking and screaming, to the car,” said Tony evenly, tightening his hold on Steve. Please, please… Just one more time, _one last time_ , let Tony have this. He would stand by his choice, if only for Steve’s benefit, but he begged the cosmos: just this once, he wanted to bask in being in love, in the company of the one he was in love with. “Please, Steve…”

Steve breathed a resigned exhale through his nose before nodding once. He bored his blue eyes into Tony’s brown ones. The orbs shone with something Tony couldn’t read but whatever it was, it broke his heart.

Tony supported Steve until the latter was buckled up in the front passenger seat before he, himself, slid into the driver’s seat. The drive was filled with heavy silence that Tony thought Steve had fallen asleep. They eventually had to stop when they hit a red light at an intersection.

“I’m sorry,” Tony murmured to the silent car. He wasn’t expecting any acknowledgment or reply. He just wanted to say it. It was three weeks too late, he knew, but if this was the last time he was allowing himself a semblance of vulnerability and if this was the last time he was going to be with Steve, he bit the bullet and said it.

“For what?” Steve piped up, surprising Tony.

“I thought you were asleep,” said Tony.

“ _For what_?” Steve repeated, not letting the matter go.

“For moving out without saying goodbye. That was a dick move—the _dickest_ —as far as dick moves go,” Tony opined, clenching his hands around the steering wheel.

“Why?” Steve asked in a choked voice. “Why did you leave?”

It was the one question Tony was not prepared to give Steve the answer to. How was he going to say it? Somehow, Tony didn’t think the spiel _‘I’ve fallen in love with you, but I don’t want you to know because I don’t deserve you, because I’m probably gonna fuck this up and hurt you in the worst way, because that’s just the kind of asshole I am. Plus, you don’t even swing that way and only had sex with me as part of a dare, so what I did was make myself scarce for both of our sakes’_ was going to cut it.

“I…had to,” Tony lamely replied. That answer wasn’t any better, but it was the only one Tony had for Steve.

“It’s me, isn’t it? You probably thought I was getting too attached, like _Lucas, the Clingy Koala_. Besides, you’ve already _had me_ —I’m already a notch on Tony Stark’s bed post, so time to move on to more challenging conquests, _right_?” Steve accused, his every word dripping with contempt. “You wouldn’t want to violate them _cardinal rules_ of yours, right?”

Tony face crumpled into a scowl. Tony had not even attempted to get into _anything_ with Steve, and yet the former had already wounded the latter. He renewed his resolve that Steve was better off not knowing anything. Because Tony was self-destructive, and he didn’t want to have to drag Steve down with him.

“I told you I was an asshole,” Tony mumbled. “You should have believed me.” The light turned green.

“Yeah, I should have,” Steve regretfully murmured through gritted teeth. “I made the mistake of thinking we were friends, at least.”

Angry Steve was good. Tony would find it easier to stay away and forget him. Steve, _himself_ , would make it easier for Tony to stay away and forget him.

“Well, we’re not.” Tony fanned the flames.

Steve grinned humorlessly at that and returned to his silent fuming while looking at the scenery provided by the car window.

“Feel free to hate all you want,” suggested Tony. “Don’t worry, after I deposit you in one piece back at your apartment, you never have to see me ever again.” Tony forced a smile on his face, in case Steve was looking his way. It didn’t matter that his insides were knotting themselves in tight tangles again.

He wanted Steve to look at him again, even if those blue eyes would be filled with derision, he didn’t care. He just wanted Steve to look at him again.

But until they pulled up in front of Tony’s old apartment building, Steve never did.

Steve tried to get out of the car by himself, but his legs were still shaky that he slipped. He would’ve fallen on his ass if he hadn’t been able to hang on to the roof and door of Tony’s car. Tony killed the engine, got out of the car and went to Steve’s side as fast but as calmly as he could. “Come on. Up.” Tony threw Steve’s arm over his shoulder and, hauling the latter by the armpits, got the drunk man back on his wobbly legs again.

“You would think that after all that hullabaloo with getting the elevator fixed during the last tenants’ meeting, this damn thing would already be fixed by now,” Tony muttered, giving the non-functional elevator’s doors an absent-minded kick as they hobbled past it in a travesty of a three-legged race contestant.

“Shouldn’t concern _you_ now, should it?” Steve commented with a lip curl that looked off on his innocent face.

Tony swallowed whatever sarcastic reply his mind had snapped to, focusing instead on getting the drunk man up to his fifth floor apartment.

The brunette kept a watchful eye on Steve while the latter swayed ever so slightly, standing in front of his apartment door and trying to get it open with his key.

Depositing a half-limp Steve on his living room settee, Tony straightened up and brushed off imaginary creases from his shirt. Now that Steve was safely back in his place, Tony should really go now. He’d got his wish to have just one last time with Steve; the longer he stayed there—with Steve—decreased his chances of being able to walk away relatively unscathed.

Just because Steve was not engaged to be married after all didn’t mean Tony could renege on his promise to himself to not get himself into this love-commitment-relationship mess.

Tony was about to turn on his heels to leave the apartment and Steve when the latter caught him by the wrist and pulled.

“I don’t hate you,” Steve confessed, his face pressed against the seat of his settee. “I _can’t_.” It dripped with such misery and self-loathing; Tony’s skin tingled because of it.

Tony tried to pry Steve’s fingers off his wrist using his other hand, but the blonde held on tighter. “Please don’t go, Tony. Please don’t leave again…”

“Steve—“

“I’m in love with you—I _love_ you,” insisted Steve in a half-choke. “You can laugh in my face all you want; you can tell me that you don’t believe in love. But I don’t care… I want you to know— _need_ you to know. I’m in love with you, Tony. Please… _Please_ don’t leave me again…”

“Steve, you don’t really love me,” dissuaded Tony with a pained smile. “This is just the alcohol talking. Or—or it was just the mind-blowing sex…”

“I’m not drunk; I know what I’m saying,” argued Steve, pulling on Tony’s arm. “And it’s _not_ the sex. The sex _was_ as mind-blowing as it was for me because by then, I’d already fallen for you.

“And I know you don’t love me because you’ve never been in love before, and you don’t believe in love. But I am done keeping mum about what _I_ feel. You don’t have to love me back, Tony. You don’t. I don’t need you to love me back for me to keep on loving you. I love you— _will_ love you, regardless.”

Tony felt his heart swelling with every word out of Steve’s mouth. This was a dream; he was going to wake up any minute now. He had been thinking about Steve so damn much that he’d dreamed about his beloved loving him back. Because there was no way this was real. There was no way something so beautiful could possibly happen to _him_.

It gave him something, though: _hope_. Hope and curiosity. What if he were to throw caution to the wind and _tried_ to actually have a relationship _with_ Steve? If he loved Steve and the latter loved him back, couldn’t they do it? Maybe Steve was all it would take to make an honest, commitment-honoring man out of Tony Stark?

But what about his self-destructive, easily distracted nature? What if he was only like this now because of the novelty of the whole thing but there would come a time that he would lose interest and where would _Steve_ be then? Tony’s commitment-phobia was bound to hurt Steve down the road, and if he really loved Steve, shouldn’t Tony spare him from that as early as now?

He was still so stunned, reveling in Steve’s drunken confession, that he didn’t quite realize that Steve had stopped speaking and the hand on his wrist had gone slack. Steve had fallen asleep.

Tony pulled his arm free from Steve’s hold. He could go now if he wanted to.

But he had never wanted to stay anywhere else more than he did here. Now. Beside Steve.

-0-0-0-

Tony cocked his head to the side just as Steve’s brows furrowed and he shifted where he lay on his living room settee, on the verge of waking up.

It was already seven in the morning, and Tony had not slept a wink. He favored staying on Steve’s living room floor in a long sitting rest pose with his back against the armchair that was perpendicular to the settee where Steve had fallen asleep, and watching the blonde while he slept. It was eerie, like _stalker_ -eerie, but Tony did it anyway. It calmed him to watch Steve sleeping.

Steve finally cracked an eye open and blinked sleep out of his eyes. Realizing that it was morning because of the light flooding his living room, Steve’s eyes finally rested on the figure of Tony. In his living room.

“It’s Saturday morning. Asylum,” Tony called with an enigmatic smile.

“You stayed,” Steve observed, sitting up on the settee and rubbing sleep from his eyes with the pads of his hands.

“You asked me to,” Tony countered.

“I remember,” confirmed the blonde, standing up and walking towards the vicinity of his bedroom and en suite.

Ah, so he _could_ remember… “You remember _everything_ , then?” Tony hollered to where he knew Steve was trying to get rid of remnants of last night’s drunken revelry.

It took Steve some time to answer. But when he did answer with, “yeah—pretty much,” he looked washed and tooth-brushed already. He went back to the living room and sat back down on the settee within Tony’s reach. “I told you that I’m in love with you.”

Tony envied Steve’s courage to say that so straightforwardly, without bashfulness or doubt. Then and there, Tony made a new promise to himself: he was going to lay it all on Steve and let him decide where they should go from there.

There was going to be no backsies on his backsies this time.

“I’m not asking for you to love me back, Tony,” Steve clarified. “That confession is not supposed to force you to feel something for me when you don’t.”

Taking a deep breath and licking his lips, Tony countered, “but if I do, then what happens now?”

“You do… what?” Steve asked, momentarily confused.

“What if I _do_ feel something for you?”

Steve’s eyes began to shine with a barrage of unreadable emotions. “Like what?” That time, he actually pursed his lips to fight off an actual smile.

“Why, Mr. Rogers, are you being deliberately obtuse with me?” Tony asked as payback. He could feel his face heating up. He’d never blushed before. So of course, he had to start _now_ in front of Steve. While he was trying his hardest to wrangle a confession out of himself.

“What I did last night was equivalent to getting a knife, cutting myself open and splaying my guts out before you. Humor me, Tony,” Steve said with an amused eye roll.

“You were wrong last night, you know, about me and my cardinal rules,” Tony began, smiling shyly at Steve. “I’ve already violated all of them. So, instead of junking them all because it’s damn hard to have to re-establish personal rules and everything—I decided to create an exception. It’s _you_. You’re the exception to every rule I could possibly have, up to and including the rule that Tony Stark doesn’t do love... _You_ ’re the exception to that rule, too.

“I’m in love with you, Steve. And though I’ve never been in love before, I know I am, this time, because I’ve never felt like this for anyone, _ever_ , before.

“I thought it best to stay away because I didn’t think you could ever feel the same way about me, with you harping about not being gay or bi every chance you got. I thought you didn’t need to know how I felt because—well—nothing was going to come of it anyway. And I must say, it was also partly motivated by selfish interests—until the very end, I didn’t want to recognize that I’ve gone and done the one thing I swore not to do.

“So…now that I’ve—how did you say it—got a knife, cut myself open and splayed my guts out before you, where do we go from here?” Tony asked, suddenly afraid that he might have miscalculated telling Steve how he felt. But there was no going back now. The ball was now in Steve’s court, just like Tony’s heart was in Steve’s hands. For him to cherish or break.

He stole a quick glance at Steve and was surprised to find the blonde zeroing in to capture Tony’s lips with his own. “Anywhere…as long as I’m with you,” murmured Steve against Tony’s mouth.

“Tony Stark in a relationship,” Tony tried the taste and feel of that. “It’s one for the books, all right. Although I think I need to point out also that, basically, what we have here is a relationship founded on _lies_ ,” Tony joked with a shit-eating grin, “Because you told me you’re not gay or even bi, but here you are in love with me. And I said I don’t do love, but I’ve just ‘fessed up that I’m over the moon for you.

“However… _mutuality_ is as good a foundation as any for a relationship, if I do say so myself.

“I just want to make sure that you know what you’re signing up for here, soldier. I’m…an asshole; I don’t sleep enough; I don’t eat enough; I’m arrogant and sarcastic, with a sick sense of humor; I cuss a lot; I forget anniversaries; I love cats and I don’t think too highly of dogs—“ At this Captain gave an animated bark from the vicinity of the kitchen. “—I am easily distracted by a nicely-built female _or male_ body; and I love sex. Like, lots and lots of freaky, uninhibited sex… Still sure you wanna hook up with me? I probably have a special circle of hell reserved only for me,” Tony described, tracing the side of Steve’s face from the temple to the chin.

“You’re perfect,” Steve answered, capturing Tony’s lips again.

 

They pecked each other’s lips intermittently, content in their present intimacy. They touched foreheads before Tony was speaking again. “I have a very good feeling about this. You’ll make an honest, one-gentleman man out of me yet.”

“Really? So, you don’t think that with your poor impulse control and everything, what we’re looking at here is essentially an explosively passionate but nevertheless short-lived relationship, peppered with arguments and bathed in a lot of manful tears?” Steve asked with an eyebrow raise and his lopsided smirk that Tony didn’t realize he had missed looking at.

Tony responded with a look of offended indignation. “Always the pessimist, aren’t you? I’ll have you know that a _certain someone_ —a person of integrity and trustworthiness—once told me that I could do anything I set my mind to and that would include staying committed to my loving partner when I said I would and for as long as I possibly could.”

Steve seemed conflicted whether he wanted to preen, grin until his face broke or shudder in elation.  

“I can tell that I don’t have you convinced,” murmured Tony, ghosting his lips over Steve’s playfully.

“I sense a _challenge_ coming along. And _you_ know how I like challenges,” the brunette remarked and that sent them both in peals of belly-aching laughter while clutching at each other.

Tony could tell Steve was joking, of course. They weren’t jumping headfirst into this only to succumb so early on to unfounded fears that they were setting themselves up for an epic fail of a relationship. They weren’t thinking along the context of forever either.

For now, Tony was prepared to take it one day at a time, much like what he had done during the Celibacy Challenge.

Being a pessimist about love was once a conscious choice on his part. Well—so was _this_. He was going to do all that he could for as long as he possibly could to make this work, make Steve happy, make Steve feel loved. Because his beloved deserved no less.

Every day was going to be a hard-fought battle to test his resolve to do right by the one he loves. Every day was going to be an adventure, a treasure hunt to find something new to love about the person he’d chosen to give his heart to.

He simply couldn’t wait for the rest of his life to start.

_Day One._

 

  

**-0-0-0-FIN-0-0-0-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-----  
> I do love me some happy endings!!!!
> 
> Do try to catch all the stories and corresponding art participating in the 2016 Cap-Iron Man Big Bang Challenge because all of them are superb, FANTASTIC works BY fans FOR fans and FOR FREE to boot! 
> 
> Remember to let me know if you enjoyed this story and I also love me some constructive criticism!
> 
> Feel free to add me up in tumblr: [emeraldine087](http://emeraldine087.tumblr.com/) to discuss writing, Stony, Drarry, the MCU or any concerns you may have about my fanfics!
> 
> Now, I'm going to go back to writing the next installments of [LOVE OF OURS](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7608316/chapters/17316379).
> 
> Maraming, maraming Salamat at Mabuhay tayong lahat!!!  
> emeraldine087 out (for now)


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